Selfie Does Texas Wineries

Selfie, as an adult, anytime in the first week of December

Literally Anyone: Hey Selfie! How’s It Going?

Brain:

Don’t say it

Selfie: IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!

One of the coolest discoveries after moving to Austin twelve years ago was that Central Texas has an epic wine country. Back when we started making the trip west towards Fredericksburg, there were a handful of wineries where now there are dozens upon dozens. Which means I could legitimately have a whole blog about Central Texas wineries but neither my waistline nor my liver would thank me for that. So for now, Places: Texas Wineries, Part Un.

As a transplant Texan, there’s nothing more quintessentially Texas to me than a vista of wide-open sky and rolling hills. It always awes our visitors when we when we take them straight from downtown Austin to that quintessential Texas in 15 minutes flat. There are so many great wineries that we tend to make three stops on a normal wine Sunday: 1) A winery halfway between Austin and Stonewall, TX; 2) Woodrose Winery; and 3) Someplace new.

My favorite halfway stop is Bell Springs. A Texas winery should have two things: great hot weather wine and a beautiful spot to sit outside. And well, Bell Springs is just the ticket. For the wine: I’m always going to pick Dripping Sweet. Now, stick with me here - I am a woman who DETESTS sweet wine. I hate it from the bottom of my soul. *Makes disgusted face* I would rather go thirsty than drink sweet wine but man, Dripping Sweet is a wine I dream about. Made with famous Fredericksburg peaches, it’s not too sweet, a perfect brunch wine and tastes like summer.

Stop #2 is always Woodrose Winery. We’ve been going to Woodrose since our very first trip out to the Texas Wine Trail in 2007 and we’ve been members since our second trip in 2008. Watching the winery grow and the duly-deserved success has been a great treat for the Selfies. The wine club feels more like a family and you can always count on the owner Mike, a fellow Illinois native, to stop by for a story or two. I could write a lot here about the native touches of refurbished schoolhouse doors or the carefully handcrafted dance hall tasting room.

The wine: Unfiltered Syrah. The wine at Woodrose is unique and something I love. Fruit-forward but never sweet, acidic but super drinkable and their reds run a solid gamut from light summer red to drink-it-with-a-Chateaubriand-heavy. In addition, Mike’s passion for cuisine is evident in his food and wine pairings and his numerous wine club cookbooks which hold some of our most praised and most used recipes.

Stop #3 on this trip was a spot that is new to us: Ron Yates Wines. I, being too deeply Midwestern to function, am always enamored with the friendly guests and lack of pretension on the Texas Wine Trail. After a delicious wine tasting which included a lively discussion of the best WWII Museums in the US (…NOLA. Hands down, btw), we got to hang out with the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – the sweetest freaking puppy ever (*cough* no one tell Wrigley.) For those who are hungry, most of the wineries out here feature food trucks and Ron Yates was no exception with this cute BBQ truck. As for the wine, I was a fan of the Farmhouse Sangiovese.