In my previous blog post, I wrote about Day 1 of our weekend trip to visit Texas Hill Country wineries with a private driver. On the first day, we used Hill Country Wine Tours and had a great time visiting Lost Draw at Johnson City, Perissos Vineyard and Winery, and Texas Exits Winery. If you haven’t read that post yet, please do so.
The first day of touring was on a Friday and so I set up a different private driver for Saturday, Hello Sunshine Tours. I had previously met the owner, Sunshine, at a winery a few years ago, so I was looking forward to using her services. Sunshine has three cars, so she also has drivers who drive for her.
Land of Promise
Since we were staying at Carter Creek Winery Resort & Spa, that’s where we were picked up by Jill Fowler, our driver for the day, in a nice Bronco Sport. We were then off to our first winery of the day.
We visited Land of Promise first which is located just north of Fredericksburg. I wrote about Land of Promise last year when I first visited, and I was looking forward to visiting and having Brenda taste the wonderful Pinot Noir wines.
Reservations are required at Land of Promise, and after we passed through the locked front gate and arrived at their house, owner/winemaker Diana Karren was waiting for us. She led us to the comfortable tasting room with couches, and a tasty charcuterie tray was available to snack on during our tasting.
Land of Promise tasting room
Diana told the history of Land of Promise while we sipped on the first wine, the 2020 Lux Libertas. It is a dry Texas white blend made with 67% Roussanne, 21% Muscat Canelli, and 12% Orange Muscat. Diana had paired the wine with some white truffle popcorn.
We also tasted some Pinot Noirs from their Sonoma vineyard where they grow five different clones of Pinot Noir. The wines we tasted were the 2018 Pinot Deo Favente and 2018 Terra De Promissio. Both were excellent and gave a good representation of the wines their Sonoma Coast vineyard can produce.
Prochnow Vineyard at Crabapple Creek
It was a great start to the day, and we were off again to the fairly new winery Prochnow Vineyard at Crabapple Creek.
Prochnow Vineyard
Jill had no problem finding the winery which consists of a 46-acre vineyard and then a beautiful farmhouse turned into a tasting room. We met owners Ross and Valerie Prochnow and had a look at the inside of the farmhouse. They explained the house was originally located in Lockhart, Texas, and after purchasing it, the entire house was moved to the current location on their property.
The vineyard and house are set on the thousand-acre land that Ross’s parents originally purchased in 1960, and Ross actually grew up there. Ross and Valerie inherited half of the property and they decided to plant the vineyard and later found the house they moved to the property. It’s an interesting story, and instead of repeating it here, Scott Hall recorded the entire story in his Texas Under Vines podcast when he visited Prochnow Vineyard.
We had a choice of where we wanted to do a wine tasting, and since it was a beautiful day compared to the rain we encountered the previous day, we chose to sit on the patio overlooking the vineyard. In the vineyard, they are growing Cabernet Sauvignon, Barbera, Roussanne, Tannat, Petite Sirah, and Picpoul Blanc.
Prochnow Vineyard view
These are the wines we tasted:
- 2023 Picpoul Blanc
- 2024 Roussanne
- 2023 Sangiovese Rosé
- 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon
- 2021 Tannat, Arrowhead Creek vineyard
Since it was lunch time, but we had snacked on the charcuterie at Land of Promise, we decided to order a soft pretzel. It turned out to be a large soft pretzel that could be dipped in cheese, and it was delicious.
It was such a beautiful day that we could have sat there for a couple more hours, but we had another winery to visit, and we had to make it back to Carter Creek for the Texas Wine Auction. We vowed to return soon.
Whatley Wines
We discovered there were two different ways to get to Whatley Wines from Prochnow Vineyard, and Jill agreed with us to try a new route that the GPS said was shorter. It turned out to be a good choice as it was a good road, and we soon found our way to the Whatley Wines entrance to their property.
There was a large party already at the winery who was getting settled under a tree outside, so we decided to sit at the tasting bar. This would also give us the opportunity to perhaps talk to owners Tyler and Melissa Whatley.
Tyler & Melissa Whatley
Tyler and Melissa were busy preparing wines for the large party and then us, and we had a chance to learn more about the winery. We wrote about Whatley Wines last year with that information, and you can read that here.
We started the wine tasting with the 2022 Now and Then (Viognier) which was refreshing. There are multiple wine flights one can do. Brenda decided to do the Building Blocks from Cali flight while I chose the Divine Vines of Texas flight. There were three more wine flights we could have selected.
Here are the wines that were in those flights at the time of our visit.
Building Blocks from Cali
- 2022 Crossroads (Chardonnay)
- 2021 Ephemeral Rosé (Malbec)
- 2021 Missing Piece (Malbec, Sangiovese)
- 2022 Bluebird (Merlot)
Divine Wines of Texas
- 2022 Verses (Grüner Veltliner)
- 2022 Asa Rosé (Zinfandel)
- 2022 Dusk (Mourvèdre)
- 2022 To Be Frank (Cabernet Franc)
We shared our wine tastings with each other, so we had a good selection of wines. We really enjoyed our visit, but we had to get to the Texas Wine Auction.
Jill returned us safely to Carter Creek and we thanked her for being such a good driver during the day.
We enjoyed the Texas Wine Auction, and it did a fantastic job of raising over $300,000 for mental health and Texas wine industry initiatives.
Sunday
On Sunday, we decided to wait for brunch and enjoy it at Terra Trails Winery, one of our favorite wineries in Johnson City. Besides great Texas wine, they also own Jax Hill Country Kitchen which serves excellent food during the weekends. We have had brunch there more than once, and we have never been disappointed. How can you beat excellent food and great Texas wine at the same time?
Terra Trails Winery brunch
We enjoyed our winery visits during the weekend, and it was a great idea to use a private driver for both days so we could just concentrate on enjoying the wines at the different wineries. I can highly recommend using either Hill Country Wine Tours or Hello Sunshine Tours when you want to just enjoy the day and not concern yourself with driving. One of the other tour companies we list, especially the Verified tour companies, will also do a fantastic job.
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