A little wine tasting in the Big state of Texas... |
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| It's always fun to go wine tasting with friends, it
just puts another twist on the whole experience. Friends of
ours, Dave & Vicki were in town (Austin), so I planned a little wine
tasting trip to let them savor Texas in a glass. I picked the
closest three wineries to Austin, never having been to them, it
should be an interesting test. We had a great time (at least
that is what they told me :), but I am not sure if they are into
Texas wines yet... Join us while we taste the
Texas Hill Country Wine Trail.
April 25, 2008 - just outside of Austin: |
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| I picked this one for several reasons, it makes Italian varietals, it has a restaurant (we were hoping to have lunch) and I had never been here :) Beautiful entrance, to the grounds. | This is a picture of the Trattoria Liserna, but alas, once we got there, we found it was not open for lunch on Friday, only on Saturdays and Sundays. Were we disappointed! Oh, well, on to the tasting... (lovely Italian look to the place). |
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| The group, Vicki, Dave & Jim as we headed over to the winery from the (closed) restaurant. | The winery building is just as beautiful as the restaurant and the grounds are very pretty too. |
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| Jim inside the tasting room. We tasted through several types of wine, but we were hungry so it was off to find food. | After talking to several people, we decided to try our luck in the town of Wimberley, not too far away from Mandola's. We traveled in style... |
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| From the parking lot that we found, we walked a little path to get to the town center. It went through the backside of this "art" gallery of wood worked animals. They were very intriguing! | We decided on Wimberley Cafe as we drove through town looking for parking. It looked like the quintessential small town cafe and it was busy! |
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| Jim and Dave yakking, waiting for our sandwiches to arrive. They passed up on the special of the day which was fried catfish & hushpuppies :) | The cafe was very busy inside, a group of "Red Hat" ladies from Austin had come over for lunch... |
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| I couldn't pass up a photographic opportunity like this one, though I did have to drag them to do it for me. Aren't they just too cute? | The next stop was Driftwood Vineyards in the town of Driftwood, TX. |
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| I can't say much about their wines, but the view from the grounds was excellent! | On to Bella Vista (not on the Texas Hill Country wine trail), found it on the web during my research. They also grow olives and make olive oil. |
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| on the way into the tasting room at Bella Vista | not only did we taste wine, we did an olive oil tasting too. It was actually pretty darn good. They had a great review in the Saveur magazine not too long ago. |
| We left the great town of Austin and went onto
Kerrville to continue our wine tasting experience and to park the
motorhome along the Guadalupe River... Jim and I tried three more
new wineries to us on our first afternoon out. April 28, 2008 |
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| Sister Creek Vineyards is located in Sisterdale, TX in an old 1885 Cotton Gin. What a great venue to use. They have a self guided tour of the wine making process if you so choose. | Inside the tasting room at Sister Creek. We were very surprised and pleased with the wines. I was trying to restrain myself from buying any, but went back after all and got a bottle of the Muscat Canelli. I enjoy a cold glass on hot days! |
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| Next stop was Comfort Cellars, we passed by it the first time and had to back track. We just didn't see the sign... | Jim is in the tasting room, getting ready to try out the wines. |
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| And on to Chisholm Trail Winery, out in the boondocks :) Their wines were another very pleasant surprise and I bought a bottle to enjoy later. | They have a nice tasting bar and lots of things to look at to purchase, along with a great sitting area and dance floor for the weekend. |
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| I made friends with the cat as we came in and he wandered over and got closer for a few more back scratches... | To get in and out of Chisholm Trails, we had to cross two creeks like this. Normally, water is not over the road, but there had been some rain a few days earlier and it was still running into the creeks. Good thing we had an SUV with 4-wheel drive (not that we needed it :) What I won't do to try a glass of wine. |
| A couple of days later, we went out to try a few of
our favorites from the area. Since we were only tasting in the
afternoon, we couldn't get too far a field (so we missed a couple of
other favorites this trip). Here we are just east of Fredericksburg,
TX on Hwy 290. We tried to get into Torre di Pietro, but they
were closed this Wednesday, though they are usually open (not enough
help). April 30, 2008
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| The sign catches your eye on the Hwy, and the winery is really a mile down a graveled road. We are sorry we are too early for the Lavender Festival, but we have places to go, things to do... FYI Becker is the largest producer of wine in Texas. | The winery hasn't changed, but we were really worried, there was a bus in the parking lot! Luckily, they had moved them out on to the deck so the tasting room was not overly crowded (small room and always LOTS of people). Henri was seeing to the bus people while we enjoyed the tasting on the inside. Great wine again as usual, for Texas. |
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| Woodrose Winery was a find from our last tasting in the area. The owners had just purchased it from someone and were in the process of making it their own. This pretty limestone sign was not there before. | This building was their, but the decks on the front and back were "in progress". They are finished now and have great views. The front one will look out over some vines and the wine making building (in progress), the back looks out over a wooded creek. |
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| Karl (pouring our wine) is the new wine maker at Woodrose and I think he is going to do very well. He blended a wine called Seven that is going to be very good and we also bought a bottle of their Rose of Sangiovese. We chatted with Karl for quite some time! He even went and got me a barrel sample of a white blend that he is working on. It will be pretty darn tasty too! | We didn't want German food (mostly what's available in Fredericksburg), so we headed back to Kerrville for dinner. We found the Cowboy Steak House on our way home. This is a picture of a wonderful sculpted glass "wall" of a wolf and a full moon. |
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| All of the meat is grilled over open flame mesquite, if you look really close you can see the flame burning orange towards the right in the above picture. It smelled really good when we walked in. | I had the quail, there were two of them butterflied and grilled over the mesquite. They were very yummy. |
| We were on our way to check out the Lyndon B.
Johnson parks and since we had to drive by the wineries to get
there, we decided to drop by Torre di Pietra since we missed it the
first time we tried... May 2, 2008 |
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| You can't even read the name, the snap dragons are so tall and stately as they how off their colors | Lots more color as we drive up to the tasting room and winery. This is also an Italian influenced winery. |
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Not many people tasting when we were there, but they don't know what they are missing. This is one of our favorites and it didn't disappoint on this trip. They also have a great selection of items in the gift shop. We even got lucky, a couple of gals were delivering freshly made, VERY local goat cheese and feta cheese, I had to buy some. |
| We are heading to Missouri for the month of May and
will be sharing some wine tasting from there... Salud!
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