REFLECTIONS
With
the anticipation of family, food &
some great Texas wines over the next few months, reflections of a great
summertime past are soon to follow. Speaking of a great summer, Becker
Vineyards enjoyed a particularly notable summer in the city of San Francisco,
California at the 2013 San Francisco International Wine Festival held this past
June. America's largest International Wine Competition awarded the 2011 Becker
Vineyards Claret a Double Gold Medal, while the 2011 Becker Vineyards Merlot,
Reserve received a Bronze Medal.
Congratulations & CHEERS!...from the
CATTLE.
With
that said, let's continue with Sophi Z.'s Texas Hill Country adventure...
... By the
way there are a handful of tasting rooms in Johnson City where you can taste
wine—who knew? When I was a kid it was dry as a bone there and I’m not talking
water. We've drunk the Syrah since returning home with marinara pasta and a
nice fresh spinach onion salad. We had the other bottle with pasta—stir fried
asparagus with diced smoked salmon in a parmesan béchamel sauce. Gosh that was
great!
From there we drove into Fredericksburg and secured our room at the Peach Tree Inn which was nicely priced, in the peak of the season. No frills but it’s very clean and you get free coffee and pastries in the AM. Besides there are great restaurants for breakfast in Fredericksburg.
From there we drove into Fredericksburg and secured our room at the Peach Tree Inn which was nicely priced, in the peak of the season. No frills but it’s very clean and you get free coffee and pastries in the AM. Besides there are great restaurants for breakfast in Fredericksburg.
We had breakfast at Winslow’s whose staff keeps the coffee coming and serves breakfast till 11 am. At 9:45 AM we had some time to kill since the Fredericksburg Winery opens at 10 AM. So we headed to the replica of the little octagonal church that you see pictures of all over town. At the Vereins Kirche, we were greeted by the curator, Mr. Voellmer who let us in early and who gave us a fascinating history, not only of Fredericksburg, but also of the German community in Texas. Fredericksburg also has the Nimitz Museum and the upper stories are shaped like a ship. I recommend it.
Next we headed to the Fredericksburg Winery www.fbgwinery.com. I asked
the server to choose my wines and she was so moved, she gave us another taste
of an orange Muscat which was absolutely grand. We bought the Riesling named
Zellebration! It’s slightly dry and slightly sweet. Lots of good acidity to eat
with chicken or fish. I think we had ours with a Tuscan bean salad.
We headed back east on 290 to Torre di Pietra www.texashillcountrywine.com who conducted a great tasting for us and we got to taste a blanc de bois which is a grape and a wine that I have heard a lot about from Raymond Haak of Haak Vineyards. Blanc du Bois is nicely acidic citrusy flavor with a hint of honey taste. I’ve heard some people say banana but I didn’t get that. We bought our bottle of Blanc du Bois. and had it with lemon chicken and a pear walnut salad with smoked bleu cheese. Delish!
That’s all the tastings I had marked but we had heard of another winery near Wimberly to visit so we decided to take the scenic route back to Austin through Wimberly and we ate lunch at a park. We always picnic once on our road trips but I’m afraid all we had left in our cooler was Kashi Go Lean, blueberries and yogurt. But hey it was a beautiful little park in Wimberly and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
We ambled down RR 12 out of Wimberly to Lone Man Mountain Rd. There we found Wimberly Valley Winery www.wimberleyvalleywinery.com which was built in 82 or 83, on thirty acres of land adjacent to a cozy rock cottage. We tasted five wines and settled on Sangria to take home. We haven’t drunk that yet because I’m determined to have it with paella. By the way, Wimberly Valley also has some outstanding fruit wines like plum.
So there you have it, tastings in the Texas Hill Country all along Wine Road 290. There are others...Becker, Woodrose, or Grape Creek. We had a budget which we stuck to and we still had a magnificent time.
When we return to wine country next year, we’re striking out for Burnet and the vineries north of Austin. J
We headed back east on 290 to Torre di Pietra www.texashillcountrywine.com who conducted a great tasting for us and we got to taste a blanc de bois which is a grape and a wine that I have heard a lot about from Raymond Haak of Haak Vineyards. Blanc du Bois is nicely acidic citrusy flavor with a hint of honey taste. I’ve heard some people say banana but I didn’t get that. We bought our bottle of Blanc du Bois. and had it with lemon chicken and a pear walnut salad with smoked bleu cheese. Delish!
That’s all the tastings I had marked but we had heard of another winery near Wimberly to visit so we decided to take the scenic route back to Austin through Wimberly and we ate lunch at a park. We always picnic once on our road trips but I’m afraid all we had left in our cooler was Kashi Go Lean, blueberries and yogurt. But hey it was a beautiful little park in Wimberly and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
We ambled down RR 12 out of Wimberly to Lone Man Mountain Rd. There we found Wimberly Valley Winery www.wimberleyvalleywinery.com which was built in 82 or 83, on thirty acres of land adjacent to a cozy rock cottage. We tasted five wines and settled on Sangria to take home. We haven’t drunk that yet because I’m determined to have it with paella. By the way, Wimberly Valley also has some outstanding fruit wines like plum.
So there you have it, tastings in the Texas Hill Country all along Wine Road 290. There are others...Becker, Woodrose, or Grape Creek. We had a budget which we stuck to and we still had a magnificent time.
When we return to wine country next year, we’re striking out for Burnet and the vineries north of Austin. J
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