The 6-year-old who live in my house and I try to spend at least a little bit of each Saturday exploring different parts of the city, which is how, among other things, he's ended up collecting pieces of what's left of Little Baghdad, taking pictures of spray-painted cattle before hiking the Trinity River levees, and making a flag while certain Cliffdwellers built a better block. Anyway. We didn't have much time for sightseeing last weekend, but circumstances allowed us to kill a few minutes in and around Bluffview, where we noticed along out-of-the-way Menier Street a for-sale sign planted in front of what turns out to be a fairly famous "urban vineyard."
Maybe you've heard of Dan Gatlin's Inwood Estates Vineyard. Texas Monthly named its "Cornelious" Tempranillo 2007 as the Texas Wine of the Month just last month, matter of fact. Those grapes aren't grown on Menier -- Gatlin, whose family started the chain of Hasty liquor stores, planted this vineyard in '97, then sold the house in '05. But it is the house from which Inwood Estates takes its name, per the history-of on the Web site:
In 1997, Dan and Rose Mary Gatlin bought a large lot in a then-undervalued part of Dallas where they remodeled the house for their residence and established a 245-vine completely "urban" vineyard. This became a local point of interest and some early Palomino-Chardonnays were produced from there non-commercially as the yield was less than 50 gallons per year. In late 2005, the Gatlins moved from there but the name stuck as the winery was being built in another part of the city. Today the current owner of the Inwood Road property has taken an interest in continuing the urban vineyard and the 2006 grapes contributed to one barrel of "Urban Dallas" Palomino-Chardonnay which will be available by Christmas 2007.Says here the house has been on and off the market since September, and a $1.594 million asking price has dropped all the way to $1.4 mil. It just went back on the market Friday, matter of fact. A steal if you like to grow-n-crush your own ("Chardonnay 90%, Cabernet 10%") and live in France without having to leave the '209.
