Vaqueros & Vines

We had a great Texas weekend, beginning on Friday night when we visited the Austin Rodeo. This was my first rodeo experience and I was pretty impressed with all the cowboys (vaqueros) and their bull riding and calf lassoing skills. Some of it looked a little rough on the animals, but I'm told they shake it off pretty quickly. (I'm hoping that's the case.) We met a group of friends there and had fun strolling the fairgrounds outside the rodeo, enjoying some live country/blue grass music, and checking out the animals. Sipping a beer in the warm evening sun while listening to country music under the huge blue sky, I felt like a real Texan and realized that if we end up moving on, I will definitely miss this place. Two years ago, I never in a million years would have imagined typing that sentence. It's amazing how we adapt and change with time. I could probably write a whole post about this, and probably will... But I digress. It was a fun night.

On Saturday, we headed out to Fredericksburg in the hill country to visit our favorite vineyard, Pedernales Cellars. We joined their wine club last spring (we're all kinds of fancy these days), so we get a shipment of three bottles once a quarter. On Saturday they had a party for all the wine club members to come out, pick up their spring shipment, do some barrel tasting of the new wines, and then stay to enjoy dinner and live music.

Since the event didn't start until 6pm, we hit up William Chris Vineyards and Rancho Ponte on our way out. It was our first visit to William Chris, and we enjoyed the wines, but were not impressed with the $10 per person tasting fee. The Texas wine country is fun to visit, but let's not kid ourselves-- it's not exactly Napa. Rancho Ponte is one of our favorites and we had to stop to pick up a bottle of their Triple M Blend. Delicious. However, we always save Pedernales for last because it's our favorite. The wines are (in my humble opinion) the best in the Texas hill country wine region, and their property is just spectacular. They have a great deck overlooking the hill country and encourage visitors to linger with a glass (or a bottle) while taking in the view. It feels like our personal little slice of hill country.

On Saturday night, after picking up our shipment, we settled ourselves at a table with a bottle of the 2009 Tempranillo and made some new friends who were also out from Austin for the day. The winery served dinner and we talked until well after dark, while Mother Nature treated us to an awesome lightning show. Eventually it started raining and we had to head home, but it was a great weekend enjoying some of the best that Texas has to offer.