We’ve been having strange weather!  Cool, windy, rainy and thunderstorms – some almost up to Charleston standards.  This is big sky country, so mist shrouded hills and lovely cloud formations are rather spectacular, and keep getting “beautiful” comments from Ann.  Sitting on our balcony with a glass of wine in the evening watching the distant hills appear out of the mist and then disappear again is rather pleasant.  As I write this we are having another round of storms with torrential rain and the drainage area down the side of the flats, normally dry, is now in full flood!

Last Thursday was the start of the Farmers Market in Fredericksburg, held like all events at Market Platz.  It’s an afternoon/evening event from 4 to 7 pm – civilised!  We were surprised how small it was and the fruit and veg were pretty limited, but maybe that will change as the season develops.  Bought strawberries, goat cheese, coffee, and pastries so a pretty good haul. They had a pizza oven going and were flogging margarita piazzas at $9 each – smelt good!  There was a wine stall, but it was from one of the “lesser” wineries, so no real temptation to linger with wine and pizza.

Friday was road trip!  Wanted to cover a couple of the more distant wineries and also visit Pontotoc vineyard in Pontotoc as we really like their wines, and wanted to see the house and vineyard. We did our due diligence and checked places that would be open!  Our trip would be north to Llano and San Saba, then across country to Pontotoc, down to Mason, and back home. We made Mason our last stop to check out Sandstone Cellars and then have an early dinner at the Mexican restaurant next door, as we had reports it was really good.  Llano turned out to be a sleepy, somewhat rundown town on the Llano River, but had a nice town square with an imposing red sandstone courthouse.  Picked up maps from the information center, as Ann had recently found out that Texas is producing individual county maps which are really good. We like maps as they provide cross-country routes that our great GPS does not know about until you are actually driving them!  Then on to San Saba to check out the Wedding Oak Winery at their tasting room in the centre of San Saba.  Arrived at lunch time so asked if they did any bread and cheese, and was told by our delightful tasting hostess to pop next door to Oliver & Co who would put a cheese plate together for us.  Went to Oliver & Co who couldn’t have been more helpful and put our snackies together and then said for us go back to the tasting room and they would deliver in a few minutes, all for the grand sum of $20!  So back to Wedding Oak where we tasted the whites – not bad – then selected glasses of their Albarino and Mausanne/Rousanne/Viognier blend to go with our lunch, which had just been delivered to a table in their Tuscan style courtyard!  The sun came out and we had a very pleasant time snacking and sipping wine, before heading back in to taste the reds. (we packed up half our cheese and crackers as it was too much to eat!)  Wedding Oak is only 3 years old, has 4 acres of vines, but they bring in grapes from the Texas high plains and California; producing about 4,000 cases a year.  Penny Adams is their wine maker – the first women wine maker in Texas. Pretty good wines, but like so many of the Texas wines they are just too young. However, their pricing is reasonable – running in the $20-30 range.  We made a quick tour round San Saba, the Pecan Capital of the World. It appeared to be a nice little town with quite a bit of restoration work going on in the downtown area.  Stopped off at the G&R Market, touted for its meats, which appeared to be true as we left with two huge pork steaks!  On to Pontotoc via some serious back roads, which still had speed limits of 60-65mph! Gotta love Texas! Pontotoc turned out to be a small dilapidated village, where we found the tasting room of Dotson Cervantes Vineyards, which also has Pontotoc Vineyards wines, in an old strip of buildings that were once the post office, general store, and a theatre.  What an experience!!  When we walked in there was a tall handsome black chap behind the counter wearing a black cowboy hat with a pheasant feather in the band, talking to three others, all about the same age – 60s plus.  Everyone was drinking wine and it turns out the three were not customers – they were just there to drink wine and bullshit!  Our host it transpired was Alphonse Dotson owner of Dotson Cervantes and its wine maker.  A retired defensive tackle from Oakland Raiders who after 15 years of the good life in Acapulco decided to return to Texas to grow grapes and make wine.  What a character!  We were there for more than an hour talking to Alphonse about how he got into the wine industry and tasting his two wines. The white – 2012 Texas Gotas de Oro – a 50/50 blend of Chardonnay and Muscat Canelli that was extremely good, and would work wonderfully with Asian food. Then the red – 2008 Something Red – a 50/50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot – a huge wine that is drinking now but would be good for another 5 years plus. Not a young wine from young vines!  Alphonse’s vineyard in Voca was started in 1996 and is now producing 1200 cases a year.  During our “tasting” Alphonse’s buddies kept popping in for refills, so got chatting and found out one of them was an ex-Baroid mudman so we swopped Magcobar – Baroid stories and oil patch stuff before I was dragged off to Mason.  What a great time!  We will return for another wine tasting session in Pontotoc before too long, but next time Ann will be driving, as I will need to spend some quality time with Alphonse and my new oil field buddies!  Sandstone Cellars in Mason is somewhat different from Pontotoc!  The tasting room was opened by the lady running their wine bar next door, who unfortunately knew very little about the wines, but found one of the owners Manny Silerio who was great.  Sandstone is a tiny winery producing about 400 cases a year, and usually only makes one wine a year.  Don Pullman is their wine maker – one of the top wine makers in the Hill Country – who also owns Akashic Vineyards in Mason.  Sandstone even made it into the 7th edition of Parkers Wine Buying Guide.  Good wines, but once again young, which Manny said was due to his limited production – his wines went too quickly!  Manny and his partner Scott Haupert also own Santos Taqueria and the Sandstone Cellars Wine Bar all in one neat strip.  Good marketing as Mason county is a dry county, despite the amount of grapes they grow, so you can get a bottle of wine to go with your meal in Santos, or food from Santos to go with your wine in the wine bar!  We ate in Santos which is a small down home Mexican spot.  Order at the counter and then your food is delivered to your table.  Manny had recommended the gorditas, which were new to us, but turned out to be delicious.  They are corn or flour cakes stuffed with meat – I had the brisket and Ann had the pork – which came with refried beans and rice.  The rice was superb – fluffy and aromatic – some of the best we’ve ever had.  Would go back just for the rice, but the gorditas are pretty awesome.

Saturday, it was off to Boerne for their Preservation and Historical Society House Tour – 6 houses in downtown Boerne from the 1800s and early 1900s – very enjoyable with a couple of really nice houses.  Bonded with a couple of owners on the “restoration” process involved in old houses!  Had lunch at The Creek restaurant, an old house bang in the centre of town on the Cibola River.  Lovely setting with good food and excellent service, but the wines prices were ridiculous.  A good day trip, though Boerne was packed!  Has a smaller population than Fredericksburg, but seems much larger, so must have a bunch of surrounding communities as it’s only 40 mins from San Antonio.

Still raining as this goes to post!

Now that we are out and about doing stuff in the Hill Country we have discovered that it is a necessity to check that the spot you are about to visit is actually open.  Accepting the times given in their brochures, local guides, websites, etc., is not the way to go as we have found to our cost.  Wineries, restaurants, shops, all have some odd hours to start with, but then they will close/not open on some whim.  So far we have not been able to determine what causes these spontaneous occurrences, but we do now call ahead to make sure they haven’t gone walk-about.  There is a coffee shop down town on Main Street, just about bang in the middle of town, renowned for their coffee and beans, whose hours are 9.00am to 2.00pm Wednesday through Sunday!  I mean – are they running two businesses, doing the school run, and looking after Mum, or running a coffee shop?!  This appears to not be unusual and we have, on a number of occasions, driven quite a distance only to find the winery or restaurant closed even though they are supposed to be open.  About 80% of the wineries are only open Thursday to Sunday, which I suppose is understandable as they are going after booze tours and SWDs (Sweet Wine Drinkers), but restaurants and shops as well?  Doesn’t make business sense to me.  There is a restaurant with a good reputation, and supposedly a stellar wine list, in a place called Welfare, which is not on any maps that we have, and which our GPS says doesn’t exist, called the Welfare Cafe – catchy! We went looking for the Welfare Cafe one day as it was obviously going to be a bit of an exercise to find it. For some odd reason there is an exit sign on I-10 for Welfare so we started there, and after much meandering found Welfare and the Welfare Cafe.  It’s one of 4 buildings and was once the Welfare general store and post office.  You’ve got it – only open Friday to Sunday – from 6.00pm to 9.00pm!  Now this place is 12 miles to the nearest town of any size, Boerne, (pronounced Bernee) and 30 miles from Fredericksburg, and not open for lunch, so the chances are we’ll never eat there.  I mean who wants to do 12 miles of Texas farm roads at night after dinner, let alone 30!  Unless you are local who really knows the roads I bet you will be like us and never eat at the Welfare Cafe.

As mentioned, we have been doing local stuff to find out as much as we can about our new community and its people.  In the last week or so we have done the Hill Country Wildflower 5K/10K Run/Walk (we did the 5K walk) which had about 350 participants of all ages.  Great fun and very well organised, and of course the weather was perfect!  That same night we attended the Fredericksburg Volunteer Firemans’ Fish Fry at Market Platz.  This was a big bash with raffles and auctions for such goodies as shotguns, rifles, pistols, and bows plus a bunch of other boring stuff, as well as live music – country that is!  We got there relatively early, but still had a wait to get our fried catfish, German potato salad, and beans; all rather good, with the potato salad being excellent.  Only one beer tent so getting our Shiner Bocks took time. Great people watching while we ate and listened to country music, and yes, the weather was fabulous. (What is that thing they call humidity?)  A reassuring turnout of people of both sexes in jeans, boots, and hats. As we were leaving there was a queue half way round the market square – amazing.  We later found out over 750 people turned out for the event, and this is in a town with a population of 10,000!  We made the trek down to Boerne to get the Pathfinder put through its 15K service – what a service centre – enormous. Huge waiting lounge with TV, magazines, WiFi, and a Starbucks coffee machine that served 6 different types of coffee in 3 sizes!  Quite a pleasant wait.  Then off to Little Gretel for lunch – a Czech/German restaurant that has been there forever so one of those places you have to visit.  Everything comes with sauerkraut – even the fish and chips!  Next day it was the Willow City Loop to see the best of the Hill Country’s wild flowers.  Willow City is comprised of a general store, feed and grain store, and a bar – all basic needs covered!  The loop is a 15-mile circuit through farm country with cattle grids and signs warning of flooding every few miles as you cross a series of streams and rivers.  Beautiful country side which is obviously at its best in the Spring.  After the circuit we headed off to the Bell Mountain Winery, where tastings are by appointment only, and were met by Evelyn Oberhelman who owns the estate with her husband Robert.  A real character and very chatty and informative.  Beautiful location with 55 acres under vines – Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay, and Riesling, with Syrah and Malbec being picked this year for the first time.  First wines were planted back in 1983 so it’s one of the oldest Hill Country wineries, which came out in the wines we tasted which were from 2007 & 2009. The 2007 was a Riesling – a 13 year old wine that was amazing – certainly didn’t show its age. Next big event was the Fredericksburg Newcomers dinner at the Alamo Springs Cafe.  Another converted general store out in the boondocks 12 miles south of Fredericksburg, which appears to be the only building left in Alamo Springs.  It was quite an event with about 40 “newcomers” packed into the back room of the cafe – pandemonium with a noise level through the roof – fun crowd!  The cafe had actually won number 3 spot for the best hamburger in Texas in the 2013 Texas Monthly Food & Wine competition, so we both had burgers, which were huge and fabulous. There were coolers of beers and racks of wine to which you helped yourself and then paid for at the end of the meal – way to go!  It turns out “newcomer” means anyone not born in Fredericksburg, so there were people there who had lived in the area for 20 years, but still rocked up to the dinners. We like the Alamo Cafe as it is open from 11.00am to 9.00pm 6 days a week, however, we will still call to double-check that it’s not having a spontaneous closing.  Friday was the art walk through the downtown galleries, which we enjoy as there are two galleries which are really good, and both serve good wine and excellent snackies.  Once again great people watching with lots of local ladies done up to the nines and wearing some pretty spiffy boots. Plus there are no open container laws so you can do the tour wine in hand.  Saturday it was back to Market Platz for the library book sale.  On our way across the market square we passed a Texas Rangers gathering for what looked to be a lunch.  Some seriously large side arms being carried in western and shoulder holsters by some very big gentlemen with badges on their shirts.  Is Texas not great?!!  The book sale was not bad – we bought books – but not a patch on the Charleston event. There were about 10 people dragging huge trolley bags loaded with books who had mobile scanners on their phones to check the on-line prices of books. Then it was on to the Comfort Antique Fair – quite an event for a little town like Comfort – with one stand having half a dozen bobbies helmets from a variety of English constabularies! We ate lunch at a local diner, which turned out not to serve booze – purely BYO – then back to the flat.  This time by some seriously minor roads – not even 2 lanes in most parts – and once again crossing numerous streams by narrow bridges which are just concrete over a couple of drainage pipes a matter of inches above the water.  Very pretty, but would be something of a challenge after heavy rains!  Knew we were really out in the country when we saw bullet holes in mail boxes and “road may flood” signs.  Just love it!!

The pause in blogging was due to the fact that we had signed up for the 2015 Wine & Wildflower Trail, which ran from April 10 to 26 and included 47 wineries; limited to 4 wineries a day – wimps.  After paying our dues of $60, The Angry Anglo and Wife hit the trail – aided and abetted at times by Jim & Jerrie or just Jerrie.  As we avoided the wine trail on weekends it meant we had 11 days to cover all the wineries, which even for us was going to be a push!  In the end we did 30 tastings, with an average of 6 wines per tasting, in our allotted time.  Not bad for old farts!  It was an amazing value for money considering a tasting normally costs $10-12 per person:- 30 wineries x $10 x 2 = $600!  Plus you got 15% off on a 3 bottle or more wine purchase.  It truly was wine and wildflowers as our trails to the wineries were through countryside covered in Blue Bonnets, Indian Paint Brushes, and many more varieties. Absolutely beautiful. Also, the people we met were really friendly, obviously loved wine, and were extremely proud of their product.  We took things quite seriously and made copious notes at our tastings as we wanted to produce a post on the wineries and their wines.  When wine makers see you are taking their work seriously the gates open and they are happy to answer questions; often coming up with some of their select wines they want you to taste.  We sometimes had extensive conversations with the owners and/or wine makers, which was so much fun.  So is Fredericksburg the new Napa?  In many ways we think it is, and can be likened to California in 70s when they first started producing wines to international standards and were being recognised as a serious wine producer.  However, a totally different wine region, climate, soil, etc., so comparisons are always going to be subjective. What is obvious is that some wineries are producing very good wines from 100% Texas grapes and winning awards in American and European wine competitions. Texas presently has about 450 growers and 300 wineries, which puts them as the 5th largest wine producing state, and obviously way behind California.  Mind you, I think Fredericksburg and the Hill Country is nicer than Napa and there are some good wines as well as some good eating spots.  No French Laundry as yet, but I bet it’s not too far away!  What is developing is the varietals that work in Texas, which turns out are the old world types such as Tempranillo, Tannat, Malbec, Sangiovese, Merlot, together with Cabernet Sauvignon, and grapes I had not come across like Lenoir, Ruby Cabernet, and Aglianico. With the whites it’s Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Semillon, and of course Chardonnay.  Plus a new grape – Blanc du Bois – a hybrid developed by the University of Florida as a grape resistant to Pierce’s disease, which is prevalent in the south. Boy, talk about a learning curve!  There has obviously been a huge amount of money and time sunk into these wineries, even by those who do not have their own vineyards. Some of the tasting rooms are huge and beautifully designed.  We came across wineries that were producing a blend of Californian and Texas grapes, or just used straight CA juice, and even one that produces Australian wines – Driftwood Vineyards in Spicewood near Lake Travis. The other fascinating thing about Driftwood is that it has 6.5 acres of Norton grapes planted and produces an excellent Norton Reserve. They are the only vineyard we know that grow Norton apart from Chrysalis and Horton in Virginia.  For y’all that do not know the story of the Norton grape, it was a hybrid developed in the late 1700s by Dr Daniel Norton as a grape that would grow in America – namely Virginia. Although nearly wiped out during prohibition, vines were located in Missouri and used to restock the Virginia vineyards.  In fact, at the 1873 Vienna World Exposition a Norton wine from Hermann, Missouri, won a gold medal. Just think where the American wine industry would be today if it wasn’t for the sanctimonious religious nuts that introduced prohibition!

Rant over – back to Texas wines. On Route 290 just east of Fredericksburg there is Alexander Vineyards, which produces some excellent wines at a reasonable prices, and they are all French!  Below the vineyard sign it says “Our tasting room may suck but our wines don’t”  Claude Alexander is a French Canadian who is basically an old school negociant who works with growers and wine makers in France to produce wines under the Alexander label, including 5 different champagnes! He wanted a place to market his wines and as California was way too expensive, he picked Fredericksburg as the new Napa! Most of the wines made from purely Texas grapes still have a way to go. Though there are some really well made wines, the majority are young, green, and tannic, with the whites generally coming across better than the reds. Wine making is professionally done, and you can see a lot of money has been spent on equipment, which all comes from CA!  I can see an opportunity here for equipment agents, manufacturers, and repair companies.  One vineyard owner bought a new crusher from the manufacturer in CA, collected it and trailered it back behind his Ford 350!  Said it was a good opportunity for the kids to see the country!  Whites are primarily all stainless steel, and we only found one producer who used American oak in their Chardonnay – liked it.  The reds however are put on oak of various kinds – everything from French, Hungarian, and American; new, used, and neutral.  The American oak came from Connetitcut, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, Oregon, and Ohio.  Who knew America was a big producer of wines barrels – export to France coming up – that would be good!  The length of aging on oak is long, with some producers goes for 24 months plus!  Also, like California of old a lot single varietal wines are produced especially Tempranillo, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, but it was the blends that were the best wines without a doubt.  Why with young vines, a relatively short season, and variable weather conditions, they are not blending is beyond me.  Also, all barrel aging, except for one vineyard, is done by varietal and then blended prior to bottling.  In many instances different vineyards, oak, and even years will be blended.  One wine we tasted had 11 different grapes, from 3 vineyards, and 2 years!!  It was quite good, and complexity was obviously the name of the game, though I think we only identified 3 of the grapes!  However, this has not stopped producers asking ridiculous prices for their product – running anywhere from the high $30s through to $109 a bottle – and they are selling out!  One of the reasons they are able to do this is that most of them have a small production – 1000 to 3000 cases a year – but large wine clubs.  One vineyard that produces 1200 cases has over 900 wine club members, so selling is not a problem for these boys. With a the majority of the producers you can only get their wines by being a wine club member or visiting the winery – they are not even in local restaurants.  Our rating for the best wines from Texas Hill Country wine makers using Texas grapes are:

Bending Branch, Comfort, TX – lovely tasting room in town, with another tasting room at the vineyard about 5 miles out in the country.  Wine maker John Rivenburgh has been using cold maceration in his wine making and has recently purchased a Flash-Détente machine from France to start thermovinification of some grapes.

Pontonoc Vineyard, Pontonoc, TX – Pontonoc means “land of hanging grapes” – nice one!  Tasting room on Main St, Fredericksburg, and at the vineyard in the village of Pontonoc.

Lost Draw Cellars, Fredericksburg, TX – tasting room downtown Fredericksburg.  Andy Timmons is a High Plains farmer who was one of the first to turn land over to grapes.  Lost Draw Vineyards has 500 acres of vines in the Lubbock area and has been suppling grapes to wineries through out the State for years, before starting Lost Draw Cellars with his nephew Andrew Sides.

We are now going to collate our tasting notes and put out the definitive report on Texas Hill Country vineyards, wineries, and wines. Hey, all that sniffing, sipping, and spitting can’t go waste!