Waters Edge Winery & Bistro – Richmond

Waters Edge Winery & Bistro in Richmond is one of the franchises of Water’s Edge Wineries. If you have been visiting Texas wineries for a number of years, you may be familiar with other similar businesses such as Water 2 Wine and D’Vine Wine. Some of these locations have closed, some are continuing, and others were a start to rebranding as their own winery.

We visited Waters Edge Winery & Bistro in Richmond. After arriving at the building located among other businesses and having an impressive building, we were excited to taste their wines. We sat at a table and learned the menu was online which has been a common practice since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

The bistro menu looked impressive but since we were not hungry, we explored the wine menu. The winery has a number of wines from which to select, but we had a difficult time selecting one. The thought to be safe was to select a wine flight:

• Sangria flight
• Blanc flight (pre-selected white wines)
• Crimson flight (pre-selected red wines)
• Premium Pick 3 flight (select any three from the current wines)
• Waterview flight (pick any six from the current wines)

The women in the group were thinking about the Sangria flight and went to look at the Sangria bottles on the tasting bar. The men were going to go with a Pick flight but then the challenge was selecting which wines. I was trying to select at least three, preferably six wines, to do a tasting. The list started well with a 2014 Napa Valley Calistoga Merlot and a 2018 Monterey County Cab Franc, but then I didn’t know what to select from.

Here are some of the wines available at the time we visited:

• Infinity (light-bodied [white] wine)
• Social Distance (full-bodied white)
• 8 Seconds (bold, rich red wine)
• Crew Love (dry, burly, and assertive wine)
• G’Day Mate (blend of these three grapes is a classic mix)
• High Roller (dark, rich wine)
• Kiss, Kiss (medium-body red)
• La Luna (Cabernet blend)
• Mississippi Blues Man (dark purple in color with a nose of blackberry jam)

For anybody who seriously drinks wine, we know some people like certain wine varietals and others do not. For example, Gloria cannot drink Viognier and other people do not care for other varietals. If I know a wine has Tempranillo, it is a good chance I will like that wine. The G’Day Mate sounded interesting and this was the entire description:

The blend of these three grapes is a classic mix. With its strong flavor and aromas of black fruits and bold tannins, this wine will develop impressive finesse and complexity as it ages.

What are the three grapes? Maybe it’s a GSM? The tasting guide couldn’t answer the question either. We did confirm with her there were no Texas wines on the menu.

Fanciful names for wines are fine, but a description of what is in the wine is definitely needed. Some people who only attend bars and wineries to drink do not care about the wine, but they are most likely the next wine lovers out there, so any wine education is a good thing.

I would love to tell you we loved the wines we tasted at Waters Edge Winery & Bistro in Richmond, but I cannot because we didn’t taste any. It was impossible for us to select three or six wines because it would be like a random lottery and hope we got something we liked.

All four of us had the same problem and since the tasting guide didn’t have any additional information, we had no choice but to say thank you and leave. After visiting over 450 Texas wineries, I do not believe I had that problem before.

On the way out, I noticed the adjacent production area had two winemakers(?) working on upcoming wines. I wondered if they knew what juice they were working with.