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!

Fredericksburg, Texas, is a small town of about 11,000 people in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, at an elevation of 1,700 ft. The town was started by German settlers in the 1840s headed by Baron von Meusebach later known as John O. Meusebach. Not your average settler as he organised a meeting with the Comanches and formed a treaty with them whereby they would not interfere in the development of the colony. The treaty is still considered unbroken to this day. Main Street divides the town and is the confluence of Highways 290, 87, and 16 which makes it quite busy, especially at weekends.  Main Street along with other streets to the north and south are very wide, as they were laid out to be able to turn an ox team in one move.  All in all a pleasant small town set in beautiful countryside, with approximately 20 vineyards within 30 mins drive!

Anyway, we were able to get out of Jim and Jerrie’s hair on schedule and didn’t over stay our allotted two weeks.  Just about all rentals are unfurnished so we arranged rental furniture through Corts, who were really good and efficient.  The move into our little flat went smoothly and was quite painless – amazing.  In one day furniture was delivered, power turned on, and TV and internet hooked up, and everyone was so nice.  When the complex manager said we had to go to Central Texas Electric Co-Op to register and pay to get the electricity turned on we looked at each other and thought “here we go.” Staggering, the effect of dealing with South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) has on a person. The receptionist at CTEC asked us to take a seat in the lobby while she arranged for us to see one of their staff, and about 3 mins later we were in Neal’s office (note the spelling) and 15 mins later we were registered, paid through their automated card swipe system just off the lobby, and power was on!  We walked out with smiles on faces!  Also, our local Post Office is a gem with everyone so friendly and helpful, quite unlike the surly staff at the Charleston central post office which we would go out of our way to avoid. Our choice of TV/Internet was TimeWarner or TimeWarner, and we had been warned by Jim that they were basically a terrible company, and good luck.  Tried to do it on-line as any normal 70-year-old person does, and was soon hanging up on really stupid TW agents who called asking really stupid questions.  The complex manager advised we go to TW’s office in Fredericksburg as they were really good, so off we went and met Natalie.  She was great – checked and saw we were in the system – but stalled – so cleared that and re-entered all our information. Then gave us all the equipment we needed to get started, and said it was a piece of cake to hook-up.  So off we went, and sure enough it was easy to get things going. Just took one call to tech services to get the password for the wireless network and that was it. However, TW has one of the most antiquated DVR systems I have come across; we can only record two shows at once, and the controls are so counter-intuitive it is mind-boggling, but hey, we are here for the wine!  Little Fredericksburg has two super markets HEB, the family owned Texas supermarket chain that is really good, and Wal-Mart.  We soon found Wal-Mart is great for setting up home on the cheap, and that shopping at HEB is much cheaper than Harris Teeter in Charleston with amazing fresh produce. Then there is the German bakery, 2 German meat shops as well as at least 6 German restaurants. However, Fredericksburg is light on Asian restaurants with only one Chinese and one Thai, but with Mexican restaurants, and couple of supposedly good American/International spots, we should be covered for our 6-months stay. By about day 3 we had joined the Wellness Center and located the golf course, which is part of the Lady Bird Johnson State Park on the outskirts of town. Johnson City, the home town of Lyndon B. Johnson is about 30 mins east of Fredericksburg, so a lot of facilities around here have the Johnson name.

Fredericksburg wine country is now considered the New Napa.  Whether that is true or not remains to be seen, but with the amount of wineries in area, and growing by the day, it is certainly a real wine area.  6 more wineries are to open this year and we are told that there are another 26 vineyard permits in the system, as well as a major Italian wine producer looking at putting in vines.  Anyway, The Angry Anglo and Wife like it and the Texas Hill Country with its wineries and restaurants certainly shows promise.

We had picked San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country as our first destination because of our good friends Jim and Jerrie who were in the process of building their retirement home in New Braunfels, and had waxed lyrical about the Hill Country and the booming wine industry.  Jerrie provided the local route from Temple to SA so we skirted Austin and stayed off I-35! Result was a pleasant doddle to their rented house in a very nice gated community in San Antonio. They had offered to put us up for two weeks while we flat hunted, so that tells you what nice people they are!!  As many of you will know J&J are super cooks and dedicated winos so it was a bit like getting an invitation to stay in a 5 star resort!  Also, both are Texans therefore had a phenomenal information and guide service at our finger tips.  So – living in the lap of luxury and being given guided tours around SA, with odd jaunts out into the Hill Country, was a really good way to get the lay of the land!  San Antonio is now the 4th largest city in Texas with a population of over 2 million and a growth rate of 9% – not a small place! True to Texas it has a unbelievable road system with I-10, I-35,1-37 running through it, locked together by the 410 and 1604 loops.  With the I-10/1604 loop junction being seriously bad at or near rush hour – trying to merge 3 lanes into one followed by a merge with two other lanes just does not work – duh!  At one junction I counted 5 layers/flyovers!  Being Texans everyone drives at speed, and beware of pick-up trucks – especially Dodge Rams – they’ll take you out in a heart beat!  With a rough idea of the town and few likely spots where we thought we might set up home we set off into the melee of SA traffic.  We checked out the Pearl Brewery Lofts, Cevellos Lofts, 1800 Broadway, Tobin Lofts, as well as 3 complexes at The Quarry.  The Quarry is a new city within a city type thing, and is set around an old quarry that is now a golf course. The shopping center included Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s plus restaurants, bakeries, wine shops, etc.; you get the picture. Overall, flats were expensive and you didn’t get too much for your dollar, but the majority of the places we checked, even the expensive ones, received generally bad revues on various social media sites.  Also, the traffic was getting to us, even though we got to know a number of routes that kept us away from the main roads.  We then went back to basics and why we were in Texas in the first place – wine country!  If we lived downtown in the walk-to stuff environment that we liked, we would still have an at least an hour’s drive to get out to the Hill Country Wineries, and then, of course, the return trip. Not good, and really not what we were looking for in our old age, so it was off to Fredericksburg, the town at the heart of the wine country. Two trips later we had put a deposit down on a 2bed/2bath flat at the Terraces at Creekside, as well as enjoyed a couple of tastings. San Antonio is quite a town with an immense amount of history.  We visited the Alamo, but didn’t make into the church as there was an immense queue, caused, it would appear, by the photographer taking your photos at the entrance of the church.  Stupid or what?  The Alamo had been in the news recently as its operation was being taken away from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to be run by the Texas General Land Office. It’s a beautiful site, and there were numerous trees in blossom for our visit with the scent wafting around the buildings. Despite the crowds you can definitely feel something of the history.  We also visited Mission San Jose just outside San Antonio, one of five missions built along the San Antonio river by the Spanish in the late 1600s – early 1700s , one of which is the Alamo. Truly an impressive site with a beautiful church and a huge granary – well worth a visit.  Apart from the history SA has become a true foody town with some seriously good restaurants.  Jim and Jerry took us to some of their favourite spots, including two outstanding Mexican restaurants – La Fonda on Main and SoLuna. The superb food at both made me realise what inferior food I’ve had at other ordinary Mexican spots. At both places we were introduced to chispas by J&J!  It means “lively” in Mexican and “esta chispa” is to get sloshed.  Appropriate as a couple of chispas does have an effect!  They are a version of a margarita but using good tequila and fresh lime juice/ingredients.  Truly delicious, and of course each restaurant has its own version, which means you have to try each variation. For a change of pace, Jerrie pointed out a new Indian restaurant called Tarka, quite close to the house and we went for lunch while Jim was working.  Really good food, and judging by the number of Indians in the restaurant it met their standards.  Ann also found a Szechuan dim-sum restaurant that was in a slightly tatty strip mall, but served good Szechuan food, though not true dim-sum as we know it from our Asia. So we had a good binge of ethnic food while doing our house hunting.

Working on the basis we didn’t want to drive/fight traffic for more than 500 miles, or about 6 hours a day, we thought Waco, TX would be a good stopping point before barreling into San Antonio.  However, there were no rooms with any of the Hilton Group hotels in Waco – wonder why?  Nearest spot to stay was Temple – a totally unknown to us – but as there were a couple of good restaurants close to the hotel, Temple it was.  “On-On” across Louisiana on I-20 – a pretty dismal drive with flooded fields and depressed/depressing towns including the dirty, grotty city of Shreveport with its horrible road system and, incredibly, a shimmery, gold multi-story casino glaring at us from among the downtown buildings . So happy to put Louisiana behind us and cross into Texas.  The first thing that you notice when you cross the state line is the speed limit goes up to 75mph.  The second thing is that the number of pick-up trucks goes up by 50%.  We turned off I-20 and headed through Tyler, Athens, and Corsicana to Waco.  These towns appeared to have seen better days with many of the old downtown buildings needing work. All of them ringed by the strip-mall, fast food, car dealership mess that blights just about all of America’s towns and cities. Being on major roads does not give you a good impression of the country!  But we were trucking along and the driving was relatively stress free – that was until we hit I-35!! What an absolute nightmare!  It seems I-35 from Dallas to Austin is under perpetual construction and has been for many years, and will continue to be for many more years.  As we ground to a halt in the middle of what looked like a war zone you could see nothing but stationary traffic, half demolished fly overs, and miles of dirt. Apart from screwing up your travels and making you really angry, it was depressing.  I’m sure the locals have their rat runs around the I-35 mess, but it still must be hell for them.  When you see this devastation you know where road rage comes from!  Anyway, we went from stopped, to crawl, to moving, back to stopped etc., etc., along 35 to our Temple exit, only to find it no longer existed!  Yep, totally gone amongst the on-going road works.  At this point a pick-up truck came blasting through on the hard shoulder and as it passed the car in front red and blue lights came on.  However, the traffic was so packed that the cop couldn’t chase him – hope he got his number. What was it I said about road rage?!  Just then an exit came up so we got the hell off I-35 with a vow to never return – ever! We had the hotel address programmed into Elsie, our reliable GPS system, and as we hit roads unknown she suddenly started giving us instructions.  It was now rush hour in Temple as we ducked and dived through a series of roads, when suddenly we saw the shining oasis of Mr Hilton’s Garden Inn!  We dragged our overnight gear into the hotel feeling we had just completed a major trek rather than a 500 mile run through middle America.  Last time I felt like that was in Nigeria after doing the Warri to Port Harcourt drive with darkness coming on!  In our room we immediately opened a bottle of restorative red wine, and drank it in a relative short period of time. We felt better!  Considering the traffic and wine consumption we chickened out of the Italian restaurant we had picked, and dined in the hotel with some more wine.  Food was not bad and we really did feel better. That was for sure!

Birmingham, AL to Vicksburg, MS was basically a wet trip along I-20.  Got into Vicksburg early afternoon so decided to visit the Vicksburg National Military Park straight away.  The site is huge with a 16 mile drive through the fortifications of the North and the South, which includes the USS Cairo Museum.  For some reason this old ironclad Cairo is pronounced “Kayroo”!  USS Cairo was sunk on the Yazoo River on an attack on the Confederate batteries by underwater mines, and became the first ship in history to be sunk by an electronically detonated torpedo.  The museum is very well done and you can walk over and around the restored vessel.  The weather deteriorated as we progressed throught the Northern lines and fortifications, so by the time we got to the Confederate defences it was a steady down pour.  Ann braved the weather to have her photo taken at the main Alabama fortifications. The site is impressive, though you need a good understanding of the seige and battle of Vicksburg, to get the most out of the visit.  What really hits you is how close the North and South lines were in many places – basically trench warfare.  By the time we checked into the Hampton Inn, right across the road from the Military Park, it was getting dark and the rain was still coming down.  Our plans to eat at a local restaurant were converted to Pappa John’s wings and pizza with a bottle of Cameron Hughs Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon in our room!  Hit the spot – very enjoyable.

We said farewell to the Low Country by heading out to Birmingham, AL on a slightly different route. We took Route 17 south to I-95 rather than the dreaded I-26.  We still had to fight the traffic on the 2 lane section of I-95 that runs through SC before crossing the Georgia border where it magically becomes 3 lanes!  Then headed across GA on I-16 towards Atlanta, a great road with very little traffic, where we thought we could hook up with I-20 without going through the city. Wrong! Really hate Atlanta!  The traffic is always chaos and 50% of the drivers seem to be frustrated NASCAR drivers with a death wish. Anyway, eventually made it out of GA into good ‘ole AL and the home of Bill and Beth.  Dragged all the stuff out of the Highlander into the garage and our guest quarters – we really need to cut back on “stuff”!  Beth said we could stay as long as we liked as long as I did the cooking, which sounded good to me.  We had shipped a bunch of African memorabilia as Ann thought it would be good to pass onto her niece who teaches at the Alabama School for the Deaf. Cost a fortune with UPS despite my remonstrations with the agent that it was 25lbs of basically unbreakable wood and iron.  Anyway, box arrived labelled fragile – it was enormous; about 6ftx4ftx1ft! When opened it was 70% packing – we filled 2 large bin bags with polystyrene beads! Tore into the manager of UPS #3809 about the unecessary packing, my uphill talk with her agent, which had resulted in a ludicrously overpacked box that I had to pay for!  Got a $20 refund – really angry with UPS Store #3809!  Oh the joy of the open road. etc., etc. Have to say that the African statues/staffs/boxes were really enjoyed by Liza’s students when Ann did a show & tell for them, so can’t bitch too much. Had a great 7 days with Bill and Beth where we ate and drank extremely well.  Beth’s homemade biscuits for breakfast are always good!  Onward stuff was reduced by 1 case of wine!  The next leg was to be via Vicksburg, MS to visit the Civil War site.  The War of Northen Agression is well remembered in the South, and as a newby Southerner I was eager to see this battlefield that cost so many lives.

I suppose background should go in some where so the travels of The Angry Anglo and Wife makes some sort of sense.  2014 was the years of down sizing, in as far as we shipped a 5 ton truck of Asian antiques to the auction house and put our 1840s Charleston single on the market.  Antiques sold but not the house! So the move to a smaller house after retirement in order to be more mobile was stymied.  Still not sure why the house didn’t sell as nobody bitched about the price!  Anyway plan B came into being – can’t sell – lets rent.  Naturally the renting went like greased lightning and we had to pack-up and get out in two weeks, which after living in our great old house for 10 years was not a trivial exercise to say the least.  Having lived and worked around the world for 35 years packing and moving was nothing new, but time does dull the memories!  Two days of chaos with our trying to stop the packers from stuffing everything they could get their hands on into boxes, despite labels and instructions not to pack, that was it. We then moved in with our good friends Scott and BB in Mt Pleasant to decompress and work out how the hell we were going to get everything into our Pathfinder and hit the road.  After a few evenings drinking Pain Killers, Manhattans, and Margaritas (not all in the same evening) and discussing what was absolutely vital to take with us such as cases of wine and booze, kitchen basics and knives (well, I like to cook) plus some clothes, we had it vaguely organised. Not sure how Ann survived the trauma of selecting what she wanted for the road from two large closets, but it appears to have happened. In many way we are happy to leave Charleston as the town has changed drastically over the past few years. Cruise ships and a huge rise in touroids has made downtown crowded, and unbridled development is just adding to this mess. Makes me angry to see such a beautiful and unique town spoilt by greed. But then leaving our friends and neighbours makes me sad. When you move it’s always the people you miss most!

Next stop Birmingham, AL to bond with Bill and Beth, Ann’s sister and husband Bill.  Going to be tough as Bill is a bourbon drinker!