Tasting Among Old Friends: 4.0 Cellars and a New Texas Wine Experience
As I left my Texas Hill Country cottage, there was a recently unfamiliar sight: patches of sky reflected up from puddles on the pockmarked country road. The wet coolness of the afternoon reminded me of driving another wine road through California’s Sonoma County and their Russian River district. It was a place of many friends and shared glasses of wine in tasting rooms with many of these visits in the cool damp time of early Spring.
My Hill Country destination was a new winery and tasting room on the Fredericksburg Wine Road 290 called Four Point Cellars or simply 4.0 Cellars. While the destination was new, it held an opportunity to meet up with old friends. For some time now as opportunities arose, I’ve stopped in to taste wine at three favorite Texas wineries generally considered off the beaten path. They are: Brennan Vineyards in Comanche, TX; Lone Oak Winery in Burleson, TX, now with the new name of Lost Oak Winery (after coming back from a California wine competition with a gold medal and threat of a law suit for use of their old name), and McPherson Cellars in Lubbock, TX. Each has the demonstrated ability to make quality and award winning wines at show well on the national and international stage, but up to today, they required some forethought, planning and a long drive across Texas to enjoy a glass of wine or to buy enough to stock your cellar.
As I approached 4.0 Cellars, their modernistic tower welcomed me from a distance. Once out of my car and approaching the 4.0 facilities, the graceful architecture and inviting landscape was equally alluring as if requesting my presence inside asking me to get reacquainted with old and favorite friends: the wines from three wineries of Brennan, Lost Oak and McPherson, but only a short fifteen minute drive from Fredericksburg, TX.
Inside 4.0 Cellars, Kassandra McPherson greeted me and welcomed me to taste some of my favorite Texas wines and many that are simply not in wide distribution around the state, and perhaps under appreciated by the Texas wine-drinking public at large. Kassandra is the daughter of Kim and granddaughter of Clinton “Doc” McPherson (both prime movers of the modern Texas wine experience). She’s back from University of California – Davis where she studied viticulture and enology and interned at Trefethen Vineyards, and now operates 4.0 Cellars. Hopefully, in time, she will get her chance to make wines of distinction in this Hill Country operation and thus fulfilling the 4.0 Cellars name.
Due to a recent trip to Lubbock to attend Literary Lubbock that featured my book, The Wineslinger Chronicles, and a follow-on tour of vineyards in the Texas High Plains AVA, I missed the opportunity to attend Four Point Cellars media launch event where Pat Brennan (Brennan Vineyards), Gene Estes (Lost Oak Winery) and Kim McPherson (McPherson Cellars) explained their new winery’s mission – The Texas Wine Experience. As summed up best by Pat Brennan, “4.0 Cellars is about giving the people of Texas the quality wines that they’ve been looking for,” and I’ll add, the convenience of having 4.0 Cellars in close proximity on the well-trafficked Route 290 Wine Road and, according to Orbitz, in the second fastest growing wine and culinary destination in the USA – The Texas Hill Country.
As I got reacquainted with my old friends – The Viogniers from Brennan Vineyards and Lost Oak Vineyards, McPherson Cellars Roussanne, La Herencia and DBS (blend of Dolcetto, Barbara and Sangiovese), and Lost Oak’s Tempranillo – I looked around and found the surroundings comfortable and quite appealing; a complement to the quality wine experience now offered at Four Point Cellars.
But, you now what? Before I left, I’d made a few new friends, too. And, so can you.
See the May TXwine Twitter Tuesday Stats, Photostream and a Surprise from 4.0 Cellars and its partner wineries: https://vintagetexas.com/?p=6253
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10354 E. US Highway 290
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624-5761
Tel: 830-997-7470
Toll Free: 1-855-480-WINE (9463)
HOURS: Monday-Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday 12pm-5pm
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For more on the Fredericksburg Wine Road 290 go to: http://www.wineroad290.com/
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