By Reid Schwartz, Senior Account Executive, AustinTexas Tourism, the Office of the Governor, Economic Development and Tourism, has been an Edelman client for 10 years. Through its relationship with the Four Season’s Hotel properties in Austin, Dallas and Houston, Texas Tourism partnered with the hotel chain for a summer press trip opportunity to bring quality media to Texas to experience the best of the Lone Star State. One of the journalists secured was John Mariani, prolific food and wine freelancer for Esquire Magazine and Bloomberg, among others.
The Edelman team promotes travel to Texas year-round, and while it may currently seem a bit chilly for a Texas wine tour, now is the perfect time to start planning your own trip for the coming spring or summer.
The Edelman team worked closely with the Four Seasons properties in Austin, Houston and Dallas as well as partner Convention and Visitors Bureaus in each city to arrange accommodations and activities for Mariani’s Texas trip, particularly focusing his itinerary surrounding the Texas wine industry: notable restaurants serving Texas wines, interviews with hotel sommeliers, etc.
Resulting from Mariani’s Texas trip was a Bloomberg News feature on the Texas wine industry: “Texas Wines Take the Heat in $1.8 Billion Business,” highlighting Texas’ ranking as fifth largest wine producing state in the U.S. The article took a comprehensive look at the wine market in Texas, and included quotes from several local wine experts such as Austin-based wine writer for Texas Monthly Magazine Jessica Dupuy, Houston Chronicle wine columnist Dale Robertson and Four Season’s sommelier James Tidwell.
The coverage detailed Texas’s 275 bonded wineries which produce three billion gallons of wine annually, and included some of Mariani’s favorite vineyards such as Llano Estacado, the Duchman Family Vineyards, Becker Vineyards and Inwood Estates Vineyards.
Mariani gave a glowing recommendation of a 2010 Duchman Family Vineyards Vermentino, and “tasted as many [wines] as [he] could, as recommended by the restaurant sommeliers and found many to be very fine wines indeed.”
Mariani threw in a bit of Texas history to boot, noting “I very much enjoyed a 2008 Llano Estacado 1836 Blend. (“1836” refers to The Battle of San Jacinto when Sam Houston beat the Mexican Army in a 30-minute battle.)”
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