round up this wine

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo uncorks first-ever online wine sale

You can grab award-winning wines at discounted prices thanks to the rodeo.

Photo courtesy of Special Olympics Texas

Each year, the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo throws a massive wine auction and dinner, where high rollers bid on one-of-a-kind vintages going for Texas-sized prices. (This year’s winner, a Piper-Heidsieck Brut, Champagne, NV from France, sold for $220,000.)

Now, locals who miss the fun of the annual Rodeo Uncorked! event can get into some oenophile fun, with the rodeo’s first-ever online wine sale.

The rodeo announced on social media that it will hold the online wine sale on July 20 at 10 am. Customers can buy award-winning wines at discounted prices, and nab the bottles via a contactless pickup. (The pickup will be held July 27-28 at NRG Park.)

The wines available for sale are award-winning wines from the Rodeo Uncorked! International Wine Competition, and were featured in the Champion Wine Garden during rodeo, according to a rodeo spokesperson.

As Houstonians are painfully aware, the rodeo was canceled by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on March 11 — some 11 days before the scheduled March 22 closing — due to coronavirus concerns.

An uproar followed, with many voicing concerns over the loss of revenue for the many vendors. Another issue was the potential loss of scholarships for FFA students who plan for years to attend and compete in the show and contests. Since 1932, the rodeo has committed more than $500 million to the youth of Texas via those grants.

However, the rodeo announced it would fulfill those scholarships on the same day it announced the cancellation.

For more information on the wine sale, visit the rodeo online.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”