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It’s been called the Lone Star Napa, the cluster of wineries in Texas Hill Country, where dramatic landscape and charming historical towns such as New Braunfels and Fredericksburg are attracting an ever-increasing number of visitors—and vineyards.
Like Napa Valley, along the Texas Wine Trail in the Hill Country there are tasting rooms everywhere. Touring the lesser-known Lone Star Napa, you might think Texas took its cue from California and got into the grape game on the tails of the Golden State. But the Texas wine industry actually predates California’s famed wine-producing region by a century. Spanish missionaries planted the first vineyard here in 1662 at the Ysleta Mission near El Paso, and wine has been made here ever since.
Today, Texas is the fifth-largest wine-producing state in the country, with more than 100 wineries. Here in the Hill Country, the top varietals are pinot grigio, syrah, and viogner, mostly due to the high levels of calcium in the soil, hot days, and warm nights. Not surprisingly, the soil here is very much like the soil in Tuscany, which of course has a wonderful fruit-of-the-vine pedigree.
To taste Texas for yourself, we suggest a long weekend of relaxing in the Texas hills, starting in Austin, heading south to New Braunfels, and then shooting back up north to Fredericksburg. Here’s our list of places to check out along the way, but feel free to explore on your own. Take the small roads. Get lost. And sample the wine as you go. Never driving under the influence, of course. Cheers.
Read the complete story in the
pages
of Cowboys & Indians magazine at
your local newsstand or call (800) 982-5370.
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