Sideways Texas Style

'Sideways' Texas-style
Scenes along the road reflect the Lone Star State's intriguing characters, pastoral beauty and fine wine
By MOLLY GLENTZER
Houston Chronicle

On our first day along the Texas Hill Country Wine Trail -- before noon, even before Riedel stemware had touched our lips -- we almost drove the Highlander into a ditch.

We'd wanted a Sideways-style ramble through Texas, and whooppee! here it was -- thankfully minus the bashed hood that movie characters Miles and Jack staged in California's Santa Barbara wine country.

On a map, it looks feasible to visit most of the Hill Country's 17 small wineries in a weekend. We went more every-which-way than sideways, at a pace I don't recommend, and still didn't hit them all. We met some real characters, found idyllic picnic spots, ate well, slept fine and -- yes, they're out there -- tasted some very good wines.

Scene 1:
Flat Creek Estate
(off FM 1431 about 20 miles east of Marble Falls)

Imagine Tuscany in a serene hideaway above Lake Travis. About 18 acres of vineyards meander across gentle slopes, and a picnic table beckons from the pecan grove along Flat Creek.

In the intimate, sunlit tasting room, viticulturist and winemaker Craig Parker -- a big, friendly Aussie -- is behind the counter.

Finicky about quality, Parker combines Old World techniques and state-of-the-art technology, including a laboratory, to achieve premium wines. If you want to know about yeast kinetics, Velo chillers, hand plunging, custom-made barrels and the best bottle glass, he's your man.

He lays out eight bottles, including Flat Creek Estate wines from his own grapes and his Travis Peak Select blends from other vineyards. Several are international award winners.

We start with the pinot grigio. Parker says Flat Creek's terroir -- its unique soil, climate and environment -- gives the estate's "bread and butter dry white" consistent character. "The style is bang-on," he says.

Hmmm, yes, it doesn't take an expert to taste this.

Watching Parker taste wine is almost as much fun as tasting it yourself. Especially when he pours his PrimRosé 2004. He looks at its lively raspberry color, swirls it in the glass, then takes a whiff: "Pomegranate, cranberry, Fuji apples, a little toffee," he says, excited. He agitates his glass for "a second profile," closes his eyes and thrusts his nose in it deep: "Fresh rhubarb, red cherries, red plum."

"A rosé is by definition a simple wine, and we haven't even tasted it yet," he says.

When he finally drinks, he draws the wine into his mouth slowly and noisily. He swishes it like it's Listerine, makes pleased faces, and spits it out. "I've never tasted cranberry and pomegranate in a Primrosetti before. It's got to be the terroir."

By the time we've made our way through the light, well-balanced Muscatos, the Super Texan (a sangiovese), the merlot and a cabernet sauvignon, I'm pumped to try the Portugese-style port, a bottle of which sits tantalizingly on the counter. Flat Creek is only one of three U.S. wineries making it.

Alas, it's not released yet.

One of the thrills of a wine country tour is discovering vintages you can't get near home. We leave with a few bottles of pinot grigio and rosé and promise to return for that port.

Scene 2:
Becker Vineyards
(Off U.S. 290, a few miles east of Fredericksburg)

Owners Richard and Bunny Becker, who favor classic Rhone varietals, have produced many award winners. They were the first in Texas to grow Viogniers. Even without some of the state's best wines and the short hop to Fredericksburg, their winery would be popular.


Outside the stone barn tasting room, guests on the covered patio view grazing quarterhorses, neat vineyards, a charming log cabin, a special-events building and a field of lavender. Inside, a crowd bellies up to the antique bar for samples of more than a dozen wines. (It's busy within a few minutes of opening on a Sunday afternoon.) A smoky aroma lingers from the fireplace.

Austin newlyweds Brian and Janis Walters are among the visitors. "They're the best winery around here by far," says Brian, who likes the Texas Iconoclast, a cabernet-merlot blend. "But we're not like the main guy in Sideways who dumps everything. We just like wine."

Touring the spanking-clean facility with manager Nicole Bendele, we feel like we've truly arrived in wine country. It's cool in Texas' largest underground cellar, where murals make the stacks of oak barrels seem even deeper than they are.

This land was prized by German farmers for its wild mustang grapese. The Beckers originally bought the property for its tiny 1890s log cabin, which they've restored and rent out as a B&B. It's rustic and cozy, with the bed tucked into a loft.

Our must-have: several bottles of the limited production '02 Merlot-Syrah and a jar of herbes de Provence spiked with the Beckers' lavender.

Scene 3:
Lost Creek Vineyard
(at Sunrise Beach off Texas 71 between Marble Falls and Llano)

There are frogs on the labels, and the best-selling wine is the red and white blend Sinfonia de Ranas (Symphony of the Frogs). But we see the swans first -- black and white beauties swimming along a lovely, private enclave of Lost Creek that flows over a low bridge just steps from the tasting room.

Unassuming winemaker and owner David Brinkman admits his first wine tasted like battery acid. These days, he sells out of everything he makes.

"It's all handmade, and I don't have a whole bunch," he says. He pours a taste of his new Blanc du Boise White Swan, an aromatic, spicy and fruity wine from grapes engineered in Florida to withstand heat.

A 30-something couple from Austin lingers at the 1880s Brunswick bar (which Brinkman found under a pile of trash in Kingsland and spent three years refinishing) before picnicking with the swans.

Scene 4:
Getting woozy

Zoom in on McReynolds Winery near Marble Falls, where a kicky blonde in dreadlocks and a cowboy hat ushers us into a tasting room that's as unfiltered as the wines. Like a hippie hideaway in a tin barn, it's outfitted with plastic chairs and a card table.

The hostess's name is Wuggins. That's it, whole name. "We're the redheaded stepchildren of Hill Country wines," she says. She makes quips with every glass she pours. "Here's a sangiovese: the wine that's as much fun to say as it is to drink." She shows us the shortcut to Spicewood. "If the cows come out, don't honk at em," she says.

Roll the camera along the wildish back road -- it's high and wide open, with creek crossings, roller-coaster hills and, yes, sauntering cows. It seems not at all odd, 30 minutes later, that we step over a sleeping Labrador retriever at Spicewood's door. The cheerful owner, Madeleine Manigold, talks us through the samples in the large, bright tasting room.

There is something to this terroir thing. The Estrella Blanca, available only at the winery, has a distinctive tang. Manigold says it's from the spice bushes that line nearby Cypress Creek. "The pioneers used it to brew an aromatic tea," she says.

Pan now back to U.S. 290 near Becker Vineyards. At the new and ambitious-looking Torre di Pietra, we step into a massive, dark tasting room that recalls a Medieval mead hall. But staffer Angela Brinlee is a ray of sunshine with big Texas hair and a British accent. She offers seven wines to taste, with food pairing suggestions. The claret seems most like her.

"It's pretty hearty to say the least," she says. "It'll make you merry in a minute."

Zoom across more winding roads to Sisterdale and the rustic 1885 cotton gin that houses Sister Creek Vineyard's tasting room and winery. A staffer empties my sample of the Texas Reserve Blend on the creaky floor.

"Keeps it seasoned," she says jauntily. "Besides, we want it to smell like wine in here."

It's beginning to feel like the twilight zone.

At Chisolm Trail Winery, longhorns and horses ramble across a dirt parking lot. In the rear of a cinderblock warehouse, two couples are exchanging glasses (nobody's spitting it out here) at the bar. "There's no reason to be esoteric about it," the host is saying. "I wouldn't guzzle it at the beach, that's for sure. But it goes great with spicy food."

I'm feeling woozy. Maybe I've swallowed too much, metaphorically speaking, of course.

Cut to a quick dinner and a long night's sleep at Das Garten Haus in Fredericksburg, before going at it another day.