Spotlight on Brownwood and Beyond
By Lori Moffatt  It’s hard to believe I’m hungry. After all, I had just spent a long weekend exploring wineries in the northern reaches of the Texas Hill Country, and among the indulgences I chose, delicious food ranked high. In restaurants both plebeian and posh all around Brownwood, I savored country-fried chicken; rare steak with wild-mushroom risotto; three different flavors of Italian gelato; even a basket of puckery, fried dill pickles served with buttermilk ranch dressing. But here we are, my husband, Randy, and I, driving through San Saba on our way back to Austin, and my lunch light is blinking. A tip from a video-store clerk on the courthouse square leads us to the Double-G Pit Stop, where plumes of mesquite smoke pour from a covered barbecue pit out front. Randy pushes open the squeaky front door, cradling a case of wine in his arms like a newborn baby. As I dig into my chopped beef sandwich, I hear my husband explain that we don’t plan to drink the wine on-premises, but we’ve been visiting wineries all weekend and we don’t want the bottles to get hot in the car. Could we please just keep them in the air-conditioning while we eat? “You’ve been doing what?” asked the manager incredulously as he allows our wine into the A/C. “Drivin’ around to wineries? In Texas?” Well, actually, yes. And if our lovely weekend is any indication, we won’t be the last couple cruising through town with a backseat full of Texas wine. The five wineries we chose to visit are part of a loosely knit group (eight in all) extending from Lampasas to Granbury. Together, they call themselves the Way Out Wineries, which describes both their off-the-beaten-path locations and their approach to making wine. We’d be staying for two nights in Brownwood, the midway point on a self-guided wine trail. There, in a railroad town whose initial heyday ended a half-century ago, we found surprises at nearly every turn. We booked a stone cottage at a wooded, rambling compound called the Star of Texas B&B, where owners Deb and Don Morelock offer five cottages, a large tipi, and a restored 1955 Spartan camper to overnight guests. The couple greeted us with a bottle of chilled Viognier from Brennan Vineyards of nearby Comanche, and as we sipped the boldly perfumed wine while lounging in low-slung chairs on the porch, I sensed trouble—a conundrum exacerbated by the nearby hammock, hot tub, koi pond, ping-pong table, and scenic hiking trail: How were we going to tear ourselves away to explore the area? Our winery visits the day prior—to Texas Legato and Pillar Bluff Vineyards in Lampasas and to the fine Alamosa Wine Cellars in Bend—had provided us with knowledge we could use as we further explored the other WOW Wineries. At Texas Legato, for example, vintner Bill Bledsoe taught us that Malbec, a grape best-known as an Argentinean varietal, grows in Texas, too. And at the rustic tasting room of Alamosa Wine Cellars, vintners Jim and Karen Johnson allowed us to sneak a sample of their still-maturing 2008 Viognier from a cask. We dropped by the Brownwood Visitor’s Center to pick up a map; I thought we’d be in and out. But, we learned, the center occupies part of the former Brownwood Harvey House, a Prairie-style structure built in 1914 to serve customers on the Santa Fe Railroad. Soon, we found ourselves wandering along the railroad tracks, taking photos and imagining what it must have been like during World War II, when a dozen passenger trains came through the station daily, bringing soldiers, visitors, and prisoners of war to nearby Camp Bowie. Next, we set off for Comanche’s Brennan Vineyards, where we met winemaker Pat Brennan, who changed his career from nephrologist to vintner after purchasing some of the most historic property in Comanche County. In fact, his tasting room, where we sampled a crisp Viognier and a succulent, slightly sweet Muscat, occupies the 1879 McCrary House, home to some of Comanche’s first Anglo setters. Brennan Vineyards also serves as the contact point for the Way Out Wineries’ five annual “Road Trip Weekends,” when wine enthusiasts enjoy food-and-wine pairings and live entertainment at each WOW winery. The next one, the winery group’s Holiday Road Trip, will take place Nov. 7-9. “It’s a fun way to see the wineries,” says Pat, “but it’s a 300-mile road trip. It takes two days.” We had run out of time, and after a lovely drive through the greening pastures of North Central Texas to try the wines of one more spot in Rising Star, we returned to our cottage in Brownwood See the full article in the November 2008 issue. |
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