Texas Hill Country (Wine Country) Pictorial
(featuring the photos of Houston-based photographer, James Skogsberg)
About a month ago, my wife and I had friends Jim and Lillian Skogsberg out for a visit to our Hill Country cottage on the “Big Hill” near Fredericksburg, TX. Jim is an avid photographer and provided photo-documentation of several stops that we made during our weekend romp around the Texas Hill Country from Fredericksberg to Mason to Burnet and back.
The weekend started with a Friday evening stop at Wildseed Farms on Route 290 just east of Fredericksburg. Just after dark, they had a “light-up” of several hot air balloons as part of their chili pepper festival.
The following morning we trekked over to Mason, TX, for lunch at Santos Taqueria with Sandstone Cellars, consultant winemaker, Don Pullum (See Don and Lillian below). We had a pre-release sampling of the new vintage wines from the winery next door to the taqueria. They included Sandstone Cellars 2010 XI (74% Syrah, 16% Mourvedre, 5% Touriga, 5% Viognier) and Sandstone Cellars 2010 XII (56% Tempranillo, 44% Touriga).
The release of their new wines is scheduled for Saturday, November 5, 2011. Check with the winery for details. It should be a fun event.
Of course, we had our dogs with us; two Labradoodles, Gus (left) and Rubio (right). They’re half brothers and enjoyed the time together walking on the winery grounds with my wife Delia (shown in front of Sandstone Cellar’s Wine Bar set in the historic home of Lucia Holmes from the late 1880s (the time of the infamous Mason County Hoo Doo Wars).
We made one last stop to visit the Martin family at their Perissos Vineyards and Winery near Burnet, TX. Seth Martin displayed his winemaking abilities by provided us with a sampling of his recent wines in the winery building that he designed and built (the family lives upstairs). Great stuff: Roussanne, Roussanne Blend, Viognier, Sangiovese, Rackers (red) Blend, Aglianico, Tempranillo, and Malbec (maybe a few more, I really can’t remember). Click here to see the paleo-point I found in their vineyard on my previous stop there in July (click here to read more about it).
Finally, the end of the long ‘hard’ day of travels and tasting ended with a Hill Country sunset.
P.S. Yes, that is an outhouse in the photo. It was used during the construction of our cottage. Who knows what creatures occupy it now. My wife posted a sign on it that says “office”.
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