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A buddy of mine just bought a plot of land in Bandera, so we decided to take our wives down for the weekend to check it out, and also, to tour a few of the nearby wineries in the Fredericksburg area.
The land is beautiful and will make a fantastic place to retire and build a house on in another 30 years, which is his plan. Sunset on Friday night:
Saturday, we got up bright and early for breakfast at the Old Spanish Trail Restaurant in downtown Bandera. I cannot emphasize to an adequate-enough degree how good the coffee is there. It's just about the finest cup of traditional-style American coffee you'll find anywhere. Cream and sugar, please:
After breakfast, it was on to Fredericksburg for the usual commercialized caning of a visit the town has come to represent for me. I'm telling you, the whole "wine" thing is blowing up down there right now. Every other shop along Main Street is currently a wine store, and seemingly every visitor you see is in town for the sole purpose of doing tastings (starting mid-morning) of some of the worst swill ever to be associated with the holy craft of winemaking. One place makes eighty different wines. Eighty. It's hilarious, but at least the bottles are pretty:
You'll see about a million of these oak barrels, too. I wonder if they know that you're supposed to age the wine in them:
Thank goodness some places still stick to making things I love:
Otherwise, Fredericksburg is still Fredericksburg. It's busy and crowded, but it's always nice to be in a place wo Ich kann mit die Leute Deutsch sprechen if I want to:
Wheat beer was mein Freund as we walked around:
On our way out to the wineries, the girls made us stop at this place called Wildseed Farms, which is a sort of uber-nursery for those with green thumbs:
They had two things I really liked -- excellent decor and a cooler full of beer:
Anyhow, we first visited Becker Winery, where they were very liberal with the number of pours. We payed for six samples, and got about twelve -- except for my unlucky buddy, who was driving us. I can sum-up their wines in one word: "Meh."
The wine was without complexity, drank generally hot, and was farcically overpriced. IMO, they were selling 9-dollar-quality bottles of wine for 25-plus bucks. But as you can see above, it's still worth a visit because the winery is very beautiful and the experience is fun. Plus, in my particular case, the company couldn't have been better. Cher and I with our wine faces on:
After Becker, it was on to Grape Creek Vineyards, a few miles back up the road. I found that, while still terribly overpriced for the quality, Grape Creek did offer an overall better-crafted selection of wines. We did another full tasting and, after finding a few bottles we were actually interested in buying for the first time that day, settled in on the vineyard patio and relaxed until it got too cold for the girls to handle. Can you see them shivering?
We all decided that P.F. Chang's in San Antonio would be our dinner destination, since we don't have one anywhere in West Texas. It was connected to some indoor-outdoor mall I've never been to before:
We arrived early, so the girls dragged us through a variety of shops that gave me the will to die. I got bored, and started taking random pics for no reason at all:
Finally, we made it to dinner. I'd had only wheat beer and wine since about 8 o'clock that morning, so I was more than ready to destroy some seared lamb and lettuce wraps. But in keeping with my obsessive compulsion to photograph all my beverages, I took a moment to preserve the Oolong tea for posterity:
Here's one last photo. I'm still getting used to this new little HD camcorder slash still camera slash MP3 player slash movie player, so I botched several shots along the way. This was my coolest mistake:
I saw quite a few bikes this weekend, which made me wish I had ridden, but hey, I'd have missed out on all that mediocre wine I got to drink. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed my little post, and I hope you all had safe, fun weekends too.
Goodnight.
The land is beautiful and will make a fantastic place to retire and build a house on in another 30 years, which is his plan. Sunset on Friday night:
Saturday, we got up bright and early for breakfast at the Old Spanish Trail Restaurant in downtown Bandera. I cannot emphasize to an adequate-enough degree how good the coffee is there. It's just about the finest cup of traditional-style American coffee you'll find anywhere. Cream and sugar, please:
After breakfast, it was on to Fredericksburg for the usual commercialized caning of a visit the town has come to represent for me. I'm telling you, the whole "wine" thing is blowing up down there right now. Every other shop along Main Street is currently a wine store, and seemingly every visitor you see is in town for the sole purpose of doing tastings (starting mid-morning) of some of the worst swill ever to be associated with the holy craft of winemaking. One place makes eighty different wines. Eighty. It's hilarious, but at least the bottles are pretty:
You'll see about a million of these oak barrels, too. I wonder if they know that you're supposed to age the wine in them:
Thank goodness some places still stick to making things I love:
Otherwise, Fredericksburg is still Fredericksburg. It's busy and crowded, but it's always nice to be in a place wo Ich kann mit die Leute Deutsch sprechen if I want to:
Wheat beer was mein Freund as we walked around:
On our way out to the wineries, the girls made us stop at this place called Wildseed Farms, which is a sort of uber-nursery for those with green thumbs:
They had two things I really liked -- excellent decor and a cooler full of beer:
Anyhow, we first visited Becker Winery, where they were very liberal with the number of pours. We payed for six samples, and got about twelve -- except for my unlucky buddy, who was driving us. I can sum-up their wines in one word: "Meh."
The wine was without complexity, drank generally hot, and was farcically overpriced. IMO, they were selling 9-dollar-quality bottles of wine for 25-plus bucks. But as you can see above, it's still worth a visit because the winery is very beautiful and the experience is fun. Plus, in my particular case, the company couldn't have been better. Cher and I with our wine faces on:
After Becker, it was on to Grape Creek Vineyards, a few miles back up the road. I found that, while still terribly overpriced for the quality, Grape Creek did offer an overall better-crafted selection of wines. We did another full tasting and, after finding a few bottles we were actually interested in buying for the first time that day, settled in on the vineyard patio and relaxed until it got too cold for the girls to handle. Can you see them shivering?
We all decided that P.F. Chang's in San Antonio would be our dinner destination, since we don't have one anywhere in West Texas. It was connected to some indoor-outdoor mall I've never been to before:
We arrived early, so the girls dragged us through a variety of shops that gave me the will to die. I got bored, and started taking random pics for no reason at all:
Finally, we made it to dinner. I'd had only wheat beer and wine since about 8 o'clock that morning, so I was more than ready to destroy some seared lamb and lettuce wraps. But in keeping with my obsessive compulsion to photograph all my beverages, I took a moment to preserve the Oolong tea for posterity:
Here's one last photo. I'm still getting used to this new little HD camcorder slash still camera slash MP3 player slash movie player, so I botched several shots along the way. This was my coolest mistake:
I saw quite a few bikes this weekend, which made me wish I had ridden, but hey, I'd have missed out on all that mediocre wine I got to drink. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed my little post, and I hope you all had safe, fun weekends too.
Goodnight.
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but that doesn't sound like your cup of tea.
