I just got back last night from an amazing week eating and drinking my way through Central Texas. When I say drinking, actually, let me be more specific about that: Drinking Texas wine. Yup. You read that right. Wine. Grown and made in Texas. Crazy, right? I thought so, too, until I actually bellied up to a tasting bar, and swirled, sniffed, and sipped my way through some pretty good wines. While you can find the occasional Chardonnay and Cabernet, it’s not these staple varietals that Texas is banking on after what amounts to hundreds of years of trial and error. What does do well are Rhone grapes, like Viognier, Syrah, and Mourvedre, the Spanish grape Tempranillo, and Italian varietals like Moscato and Sangiovese. Who knew, right? The most interesting thing to me, though, was how focused on food-friendly these wines seemed to be. None of the wines I tasted were crafted in the big, slap-you-in-the-face-with-fruit style, but more often than not, balanced and even elegant, with a pretty serious focus from both the local winemakers and chefs on the whole “what grows together, goes together” tenet.

Case and point: my favorite meal of the trip was a spectacular, locally-minded lunch at Fall Creek Vineyards, hosted by owners Susan and Ed Auler, former ranchers who got bit by the wine bug on a 3-week eating and sipping tour through France decades ago. That Susan and Ed would pair up with Texas chef Terry Thompson-Anderson—the creator of said spectacular lunch—makes a lot of sense. Anderson is nothing less than passionate about Texas foodways, authoring multiple books on the topic, like the fantastic part travel-guide, part cookbook, part love note to Central Texas, Texas Hill Country, which has just been re-released in a second edition. And here’s the embarrassing thing: Not only did I never in a million years think about Texas for wine, I never thought about it much for its agricultural wealth, either, with California overshadowing my brain for its sunny and abundant back-to-the-earth farming capabilities. To me, Texas meant cattle (and oil). But Texas is no slouch when it comes to great produce. Sure, the beef and lamb are great (and I ate my share of it this past week…), but the outstanding produce, artisan cheeses, and great wines really opened my eyes to a whole new side of the Lone Star State. The lunch I ate with the Auler’s was probably about 99% locally sourced—the winter greens in my salad and cilantro and olive oil in my salad dressing (Note to cilantro haters: Anderson will make you love the stuff; believe it!), the Kocurek Farm duck bacon, the creamy tang of the CKC Farms goat cheese, the Texas Kitchen pride mushrooms, the roasted Lockhart Quail, Aurelia’s amazing artisan chorizo, and the local peaches (they’d been put up from last season—an honest to goodness winter treat) in my I-could-die-now-and-be-happy serving of Fredicksburg peach bread pudding with whiskey and peach sauce. Not to mention how amazingly well the wines we had went with each devastatingly good course—in order, a 2008 slightly off-dry Chenin Blanc; the excellent 2005 Meritas, a blend of Syrah, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon; and the peachy Muscat-Canelli. Are you hungry yet? Yeah, me too. I’m still swooning from the memory of it all.

Last night, back in my home kitchen, I was missing all that good Texas food, so I cracked open the copy of Anderson’s Hill Country cookbook that I’d picked up along the way, and felt compelled to make Anderson’s excellent cilantro and goat cheese mashed potatoes, as well as a mouthwatering recipe for pecan-encrusted pork loin contributed to the book by Fredericksburg staple, Hannah’s on Main. When I got it all to the table, my husband—who’d been surviving bachelor-style on snack food since I’d been gone—nearly fell off his chair, and as we fell into a kind of silent food-worship reverie, we were transported far, far west, from New York to deep in the heart of Texas. Not such a bad place to be.

Cilantro and Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Anderson is nothing less than a genius, adding tangy goat cheese in place of the usual sour cream, which also complemented the cilantro and red potatoes perfectly.

• 1 lb small, unpeeled new potatoes, quartered
• 2 Tbs unsalted butter
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 4 oz. Pure Luck Texas Plain chevre (or your favorite available, local goat cheese)
• 1 heaping Tbs of minced cilantro
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 3/4 tsp sea salt

Place potatoes in a heavy, 3-quart saucepan and add cold water to cover. Bring to a full, rolling boil over medium-high heat and cook for 20 minutes, or until potatoes are very soft. While potatoes are cooking, melt butter in a heavy 8-inch skillet over medium heat. Add onions and sauté, stirring often, until wilted and transparent, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. Drain potatoes in a colander and transfer to a medium bowl. Add the sautéed onions and any residual butter in the skillet, chevre, cilantro, salt, and pepper. Mash the potatoes with a potato masher, incorporating the other ingredients. Leave them slightly lumpy. Serve hot. –Terry Thompson-Anderson.

Have you tasted any great Texan wines? Had a delicious dining experience in the Lone Star State? Tell me about it!

Amy Zavatto has been writing about wine, spirits, and food for ten years. Her work appears in Imbibe, Gotham, and Every Day with Rachael Ray, among others. She is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Bartending and the co-author of The Renaissance Guide to Wine & Food Pairing.