Impromptu trip to the Hill Country

[hotwine]

Nice weather this AM suggested we spend the day outside, either working on landscaping or driving up into the hills. The latter won out, so we went up to Fredericskburg, about an hour NW of San Antonio. Wound up spending most of our time at a tiny boutique winery near Stonewall.... max production in a good year is only some 3,000 cases, and frequently much less. Everything produced is either sold through the tasting room, or to local restaurants... none available at conventional retail jernts. Delightful place, though. Best wines were a rose' style of CS blended with Chenin Blanc; a Port style (a CS fortified to 18.2% alc/vol); and the CS, of which the '04, still in barrel, is hands down the best. Talked the winemaker into letting me steal one bottle from barrel .... a CS blended with about 10% Merlot. A real bell-ringer! And he wants to leave it in barrel for a few more months. More like a Bordeaux than any other Texas wine I've ever tasted. He really needs to get that stuff into bottle. Looking at some 920 cases total.

Finished up at Becker Vineyards only a couple of miles away, a big commercial operation by comparison. Very impressive. We were fairly familiar with their wines, so we merely looked around and left. Must have been a couple of dozen vehicles in the parking lot, plus a tour bus of some wine club that had cases going out the door like a trail of ants.

There are now seven wineries in the immediate vicinity of Fred., so there's more to see and do up there next time.

[Innkeeper]

We hit Fredericksburg when we visited friends in Austin seven or so years ago. Forget the names of the wineries we visited, but was very impressed with the town.