Walking Among Fredericksburg Main Street Wineries

I had a very cool idea.

There used to be a few Texas wineries and tasting rooms on Main Street, Fredericksburg. Now there are nine Texas wineries/tasting rooms directly on Main Street, more Texas wineries/tasting rooms off-Main Street, more wine tasting rooms in the area, and even more to come. With that number of wineries, why worry about drinking and driving? Just stay near Main Street, walk to the wineries, and simply walk “home” at the end of the day!

Four of us decided to try this, Gloria and me, and Gloria’s brother Lucho and sister-in-law Patricia. Based on our schedule, we ended up having to do this on a Sunday. That limited the day to roughly 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. when the wineries and tasting rooms were open. The challenge was compiling all the hours and then determining how to best visit the number of wineries and tasting rooms present. Of course, the Texas Wine Lover winery map was used to determine the order of the wineries, and based on checking the current hours, it was then determined the actual order which could be attempted during that timeframe.

These are the Texas wineries and tasting rooms on Main Street from east to west at the time of our visit:

• Andreucci WineRoom
• Becker Vineyards – Main Street
• Cross Mountain Vineyards
• Grape Creek Vineyards – Main Street
• Fat Ass Ranch & Winery – Main Street
• Fiesta Winery Main Street
• Narrow Path Winery – Main Street
• Fredericksburg Winery
• Pontotoc Vineyard

These are the Texas wineries and tasting rooms off-Main Street at the time of our visit:

• Vintners Hideaway
• Lost Draw Cellars

As I mentioned, there are more wine tasting rooms currently present and even more Texas wineries and tasting rooms planning on opening soon.

We reserved an Airbnb off Main Street and it provided a short walk to the first winery on Main Street. We have some friends who live in Fredericksburg and we planned on meeting them at 11 a.m. Because we planned on going somewhere else after we met them to run an errand, we drove instead to one of the earliest opening tasting rooms, Perspective Cellars. What wasn’t fun was the traffic on Main Street! We have certainly experienced traffic on Main Street throughout the years, but I did not think the traffic would be that bad at 11 a.m. on a Sunday. We finally made it to Perspective Cellars 15 minutes late so please plan accordingly next time you’re on Main Street and trying to find parking.

We met Laurie and Shelly Ware along with Karen Sportsman, owner of Lazy T Bed and Breakfast, at Perspective Cellars. It was a pleasure meeting Amie Nemec who would lead our tasting. Perspective Cellars handles their tastings a little bit different than most. They offer a number of varietal wine flights in order to compare a Texas wine to another of the same variety from the New World and Old World. At the time of our visit, there were thirteen flights from which to select. Each wine flight also includes a special food pairing for you to help differentiate between the flavors of the wines. Coincidentally, the seven of us all chose a different flight. Unfortunately for Amie, that meant seven flights she would have to describe to us.

We all enjoyed our tasting together and can easily recommend visiting Perspective Cellars. After the tasting and saying goodbye to everyone, we ran our errand and drove back to the Airbnb in order to walk back down Main Street. The first tasting room we then stopped at was Andreucci Wineroom. Gloria loves their Prosecco, so we all decided to share a bottle of Prosecco. This also helped to cleanse our palate for the rest of the day. Owner Flavio Andreucci’s nephew was in town for a while working at the winery, so he helped us with the wine. After the four of us enjoyed the Prosecco, we were rearing to go and hit the next winery.

Our day had started well, but unfortunately it did not continue as we had hoped. We learned that some wineries on Main Street only do tastings or just glasses of wine. This may be perfectly fine for the shopper who may stop into the tasting room to try some wine, but with four of us who are true Texas wine lovers, buying one bottle to share was the most economical way for us to enjoy a glass per person. When we visited a tasting room that would not sell us a bottle that could be opened, we realized that buying four glasses of wine was much higher in cost than one bottle of wine, and then we wondered how many other people walked out without buying anything like we did.

The nice thing about walking around Fredericksburg is that you can walk around with an open container. As we learned though, that container is a plastic glass. That is understandable though because you do not want people walking around town with real glass that could break. But if we have a choice between a plastic glass of wine staying in the tasting room or going to another tasting room that uses a real glass, I think you can guess what that choice is.

Another tasting room would only do tastings. Well, unless you were a wine club member and then you could have a real glass of wine and sit in the private lounge too. We were deciding what to do there, but after being told there was a 15-20 minute wait just to do a tasting, that business became another place without a purchase.

By this time, we were a little thirsty from the heat, so we stopped into Fiesta Winery. One bench along the wall satisfied the women (Lucho and I are gentlemen!) and we enjoyed some award-winning wine after being helped by Connie.

We made it to Narrow Path Winery and were pleased to learn we could buy a bottle of wine there to share. Plus, there was a nice table by the window where we could all enjoy it while viewing the passersby. The 2017 Scattered Stone blend went beautifully for our visit at Narrow Path.

One tasting room off Main Street is Vintners Hideaway. Lucho and Patricia had not been there before, so we took the short walk from Main Street and introduced them to the tasting room. Dana Carter has worked there since they opened and has always been wonderful in providing the best tasting experience. After a tough decision, we decided to go with a wonderful bottle of Tannat and sat on the couches to enjoy the bottle.

Upon having an enjoyable time at Vintners Hideaway, we had time left in the day for one more winery. Walking back down Main Street, we soon came to Cross Mountain Vineyards which none of us had visited before. Cross Mountain has a wide selection of Italian wines, so the first challenge was deciding what flight from which to select. We ended up with different flights, and we all enjoyed our last wines of the day.

It was now time for dinner and the nearest restaurant that offered a variety of foods that had good ratings was Cultures Grill & Bar. The selection was great, but the service was a little slow. To give the restaurant some credit, they recognized the service was slow and brought complimentary queso and chips for us to snack on before our entrees came. The entrees were wonderful, and we would definitely visit the restaurant again.

That was our day on Main Street Fredericksburg walking among the wineries. If you want to try the same idea, I would suggest doing it on a Saturday, and even better add Sunday too, so you can enjoy all the wineries while you walk on Main Street. Cheers!