Kai-Simone Winery

Kai-Simone Winery is located in Spring Branch and is owned by Sheila Adams. The winery opened in 2019 and is named after Sheila’s two daughters’ middle names, Kai and Simone. Sheila is involved with the wines made onsite at the winery or elsewhere at an offsite winery.

We found the winery located not far off US-281 south of Blanco. The winery is in a nice-looking building and when you park in the back where the patio and other action is happening, you must walk around to the front of the building to enter the winery. You are then led out to the patio to do your tasting.

It was a nice day when we visited and we were given a sheet to mark the wines we wanted to taste. Tastings are either four or six wine flights. There are also QR codes on the sheet that guide you to more detailed descriptions of the wines. This is a nice touch for those who want to know more about the wines. Of course, I selected the six wine flight.

These are the wines available during our visit:

2020 Sauvignon Blanc (dry) – Yakima Valley, WA
2020 Chardonnay (semi-dry) – Lodi, CA
2019 Viognier (semi-dry) – Texas
2020 Riesling (semi-dry) – Lodi, CA
Moscato (sweet) – Lodi, CA
Pink Sky Rosé (semi-dry sparkling) – Texas
2017-2018 Sangiovese – Texas High Plains
2018 Merlot – Texas High Plains
Cabernet Sauvignon – Texas
2016 Petite Sirah – Texas
Cocoberry Kiss (sweet dessert with strawberries and chocolate) – Texas

The tastings arrived in small plastic cups and I took the option of having a wine glass that I could then pour them into instead of drinking out of the plastic cups. After all these years, I am still not sold on providing flights like this. I came up with questions during my tasting, and I had to start taking notes to get a queue of questions ready for the next time I saw the server. The other issue is when you have a choice of wines to make for the entire flight, if you discover another wine later after you have already selected the wines that you would like instead, you cannot make a change unlike if the tastings were done one by one.

Sheila Adams was busy in the production area, but we appreciated her taking a break from her work to meet us.