Maybe we're ripe for wine chains. Patrick Colombo, founder of Ferré and Crú wine bar, seems to think so. He's poised to open his first Crú outide of Texas in Denver's Larimer Square. This marks the fourth Crú, adding to the Texas batch in Dallas, Plano and The Woodlands. Why is Colombo breeding a Crú bunch while leaving Ferré to dangle as a single berry? "It's an uncrowded market," he explains. "There's only a handful of individual wine bars out there."... Tracy Moore-Rathbun and Lynae Fearing, wives of two well-known Dallas chefs (Kent and Dean), are harboring restaurant development thoughts. "It's like we're putting on our shoes for a marathon," explains Rathbun. "We're just in the putting-on-the-shoes part."...Former Star Canyon partner Michael Cox, who has been general manager of the Plano Central Market for the last four years, has slipped down south to take over the Dallas Central Market. This comes as Plano Central Market chef Matthew Dunn has enlisted with Stephan Pyles in his new Arts District restaurant. "Those guys have always followed him," says Cox of the Pyles' former kitchen cohorts. "I think that's how any great chef is. He's always going to carry his people around."...Wineries are exploding in Texas, up to 109 from barely 90 a couple of months ago. New entrants include Vintner's Cellar of North Texas in Plano, one of those reality winemaker shops where you can make your own, and Three Dudes Winery in San Marcos. Then there is Red Caboose Winery, a project launched by Dallas architect Gary McKibben whose firm Johnson-McKibben is specializing in winery design. Located in Meridian, Red Caboose will bottle Cabernet, Tempranillo, Viognier and Sémillon. And instead of coal or diesel fuel, Red Caboose runs on wind turbines, photovoltaic power cells and geothermal cooling and heating systems, whereby a series of four-inch, 250-foot-deep wells are bored into the earth to serve as heat sinks for circulated water and glycol. This Texas wine is green by intention.
