Post-eclipse visits to Texas Hill Country wineries - short notes

WINE TALK
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We were in Fredericksburg TX for the week of the eclipse. The clouds held off long enough to experience totality - and all agreed it was quite an experience.

For the rest of the week we enjoyed some of the wineries and restaurants in the area. From reviewing this board, I picked out William Chris, Inwood Estates, Calais, Kuhlman, Pedernales, and Becker for visits. It turned out I only visited Inwood, Becker, and Calais (the rest I tasted at local restaurants). My notes are short and general since I was with a few friends.

Inwood had some good reds (either their Illlumina or Inwood Estate bottlings). I really enjoyed their 2021 Illumina Touriga Nacionale (a Portuguese grape). From the Calais, my favorites were the L’Exposition Narra Vineyard Clone 47 2020 (a Cab) and the 2019 TX RG (made in a left bank Bordeaux style). At Becker, I really enjoyed their 2021 Viognier Reserve. I bought a few bottles to take home. Since the host talked up their Malbec, I gave that a try but it didn’t inspire me to buy a bottle, neither did their white Rhone blend (Prairie Cuvee) or Cab Reserve. Their Chardonnay was ok.

I had reds from William Chris and Kuhlman at local restaurants. From the single bottlings that were offered at the restaurants, I was just ok on these reds. Too bad I didn’t get a chance to taste more of their wines at the tasting rooms.

Note that a lot of the wines in TX Hill Country are made with grapes sourced from the Texas High Plains (more towards the panhandle or west TX). You see a lot of vineyards in Hill Country but these grapes I am assuming going into the lower price point wines. Becker takes some pride in their acres of local vineyards, but some of their wines are labelled as High Plains. And if you visit the area, you’ll find out that most wineries require reservations. Some have light snack and lunch offerings.

For the restaurants, we enjoyed Ottos German Bistro, Sages, Hill and Vine, and Cabernet Grill. A friend wanted to eat at Auslander for old times sake, but not a restaurant we’d go back to (but its a good tourist draw being right on Main Street). Becker has a Main Street tasting room.

We also stopped by Garrison Bros. distillery. I’ve had some of their bourbon bought on the east coast and wanted to have a bottle available in our rental for some late night sipping. They have a nice set up with food and music; worth a visit.

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Otto’s is very good and has some interesting winemakers in on the regular, but normally mid-week so no go for me. I’m not familiar with Inwood Estates or Calais, but will put them on the list for the next drive up.

Kuhlman is or used to be all or near all California juice. Their food and wine tasting at the winery used to be 1 of the better experiences up there. Becker is the pioneer and I have had their wines from the 80’s and they showed strong, but I just don’t care for Missouri oak.

Thanks for sharing!

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I didn’t dig into the oak each winery uses, but I did see at Calais that all the barrels were French oak.

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These guys with High Plains vineyards are really trying to make good wine. I think some of the struggle is finding a match between grapes really suited to thrive and grapes consumers of Texas wine are willing to buy. Your person who loves a Joel Gott $12 cab and is taking a swing on a Texas wine one night probably isn’t going to be high on Aglianico or Touriga or other hot temp grapes. So there is a good bit of merlot and cab and tempranillo. Inwood struggled for a while with their tempranillo getting too syrupy and medicinal, as have a number of other Texas wineries.

I really do hope they continue to improve. The High Plains area near the Davis “mountains” has some volcanic qualities to the soil, great slopes on which to grow, nice temperature swings with cooler desert evenings. While it’s still hot, it’s not blast furnace melt your face hot like Dallas. Alpine, Texas, for example, is usually a good 6-7 degrees cooler in the summer. Which means sometimes the highs are near 100. But not usually 106-113 like last summer in Dallas.