Fredericksburg Trip

Stephen and I went to Fredericksburg last Friday to pick up our February wine club shipment from Becker Vineyards. Along the way we stopped at Texas Hills Winery, which is probably one of my favorites in Fredericksburg. They have a really great kick butt cab, orange moscato, and shiraz. They have a $5 tasting fee, which is refunded if you buy any bottle, so we usually end up doing that. This time we bought a half sized bottle of moscato that I thought my mom would like.

We also stopped at the Lost Creek tasting room, where we met a very nice guy who knew a ton about wine. He was the buyer for the tasting room and his job was to visit all the Texas wineries and decide which wines to sell there. How amazing is that! We ended up buying a somewhat expensive bottle of wine from Perissus, which I had never even heard of. It was SO good, more on that in a later post. Ok, already we have bought 2 bottles and we haven't even picked up the 3 we came for!

Whenever we go to Fredericksburg we try to find a new place to try, so this time we wanted to check out the William Chris winery, which is somewhat new. Apparently one of the guys from Woodrose Winery works there now and when we walked in, he actually recognized us! We ended up not staying and tasting their wines because they were 4 tastes for $10. Who do they think they are? Napa?

We also stopped at Pedernales Cellars, which is another place we had never been. This place was a little pricey too, at $12 for 9 wines. Honestly, there was nothing amazing there and we ended up just wasting our money :(.

We decided to save Becker for last, so we went into town to our favorite store that we call "the sample place". I don't even remember the name of this store but there are seriously HUNDREDS of samples of mustards, jellies, dips, salsas, hot sauces, etc. We filled up, checked out another wine store in town with samples, and then headed back out to Becker to pick up our wines.

(here is a picture of us in front of Becker 3 years ago! Wow!)

The cool thing about being in the Becker wine club is that you get to taste their wines for free when you come. Usually, there is a $10 fee for 6 tastes, so we end up getting $20 worth of tastings for free. We share each tasting also, so that way we each get to taste 12 wines. I was a little disappointed to learn that although wine club members save 20% on their wines, there is a $5 processing fee added on to each shipment. Also, we get 3 wines every 3 months, and I am usually charged between $50 - 70, which seems pretty high for only 3 wines. What they usually do is put on of their expensive ones in there and then a medium priced one and a cheaper one.

Here is what we got in our February shipment:

We got an albarino (meh), a barbera (yum!) and the dark one in the middle is a reserve merlot. I was a little disappointed again, because I probably would not have picked those wines and yet I had to pay for them. On our way back home Stephen and I discussed probably quitting the Becker wine club, since we have tried everything they have multiple times and are getting a bit tired of it. Also, we have just accumulated so many wines over the years that we want to only be adding wines that we truly love.

Becker Barbera

Stephen and I had his sister and her boyfriend over for wii and wine and we had them pick a wine. They chose this Becker barbera, which is an EXCELLENT wine. This wine has a really unique smell and I was trying to look online somewhere for what it is and came across sandalwood. That is exactly it! And possibly a bit of mint? The flavor is also amazing - it has a subtle spiciness yet is a relatively light wine. It doesn't taste or feel thin at all though, which is something I hate in a wine. There is still some fruit in here, but it is not the dominant flavor.

I am sad to say that the barbera is no longer on the Becker website, which leads me to believe they are not making it any more? :( This may the last bottle I ever have! Also, speaking of Becker, Stephen and I joined their wine club when we went up there in June and haven't picked up our shipment yet. We signed up for 3 wines every 3 months, and they are supposed to be special limited release and exclusive wines. At this point, we are just going to wait a few more weeks and pick up our September shipment along with our December one (which is supposed to have the Raven wine in it - their special!).

To go along with our wine, I made a cheese plate! Ahhh the days of cheese plates, they have been severely lacking in my life lately. Anyway, I cut us up some aged gouda, gruyere, and parrano and all were delicious. I think the consensus was that the parrano was the best one, although all were amazing. In my opinion, the gouda paired best with the barbera.