Texas BBQ & California Wine

Earlier this month, Brad and I had the pleasure of getting together with Holly & Katie, our new friends from Gnarly Head Wines (Napa, CA), while they were in Austin for a zinfandel conference. After drinks at Truluck's, we took the nice drive down to Driftwood for dinner at The Salt Lick. Since they had several of their wines - zin, pino noir, & cab - with them and since TSL is BYOB, it seemed like the right choice for introducing our NoCal pals to Texas BBQ. (Gnarly Head just joined Twitter. Follow 'em!)

I handled the ordering, and the ladies handled wine pairings. Brad handled, well, eating and drinking. On the menu: brisket (half inside cut & half outside, pork ribs, turkey, sausage, half chicken, and bowls of beans, slaw, & potato salad (which, IMO, are best when mixed together). Plus a second order of ribs, which turned out to be much hotter than the first and, again IMO, the best item of the night. The ladies were fantastic company and patiently explained many Xs and Os of wine to this teetotaler. After 3 hours of 40 minutes at the table, the leftovers were boxed and the wine was gone, so we took a couple of pics of the pit and headed back to A-town.

Katie & Holly seemed to enjoy the food and the atmosphere and were happy to learn that TSL ships. They were gracious enough to invite us to be judges at the championship of Gnarly Head's Rippin' Ribs competition, to be held in October in Kansas City. Needless to say, we're looking forward to it.