Williams Ranch Vineyard

Williams Ranch Vineyard is located in Plains of the Texas High Plains and is owned by Kirk and Shawn Williams at the location of their estate vineyard.

The vineyard was started in 1998 and has 7.5 acres of grapes for which they grow Riesling, Orange Muscat, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petite Sirah. They have always sold their grapes to wineries in the Texas Hill Country, but later they decided to open their own winery in June 2021.

I arrived at the winery without an issue following my phone’s GPS. I bring that up because, for some reason, my phone lost all GPS capability upon leaving the winery. I was going to a new location which was north of where I had arrived, but I had no choice but to go back to the road I had arrived on just to get a signal on my phone again for the GPS to work.

The vineyard is located across the road from the tasting room which is in a house. As I learned during my tasting, Kirk’s grandparents built the house in the 1930s, and Kirk and Shawn have converted the old house into the current tasting room.

The older house makes for a quaint tasting room to enjoy the Williams Ranch Vineyard wines. I enjoyed my tasting while Kirk and Shawn explained the history and the wines.

These are the wines that were available at the time of my visit. A lot of the wines had a wonderful story of the wine on the back label:

• 2020 Riesling (estate)
• 2017 Orange Muscat (the label with the Tokyo post office won an award at Lone Star International Wine Competition)
• 2019 Mary Dale’s White Blend (Riesling, Viognier, Roussanne)
• 2019 Rosé (43% Tempranillo and 57% Mourvèdre) – Buena Suerte Vineyards
• 2019 Rafter W Red Blend (Tempranillo, Ruby Cabernet, Carignan) – Buena Suerte Vineyards
• 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon (American)

With the opening of more wineries in the Texas High Plains, the Williams are looking to start a wine trail again which will make it easier for consumers to visit more of the wineries.