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!