Texas Wine Collective (Hill Country)

[00:00:06] Howdy Vine Trippers. I wanted to take just a moment to talk to you about the Texas wine lover website and their phone app for both iPhones as well as Google devices. You can

[00:00:17] actually download this app, put it on your phone or just go to the website if you're not an app person. And if you ever want to go visit some of these great locations that we've been talking about in the podcast, this will give you a great information about

[00:00:29] the place before you go and you'll be able to find other wineries in the area. So if you want to make a day of it, go see several other places as well. You can search by region,

[00:00:39] you can sort the listings, find ones that are kid-friendly, family-friendly, even ones that host RVs, all kinds of different sortable listings you can find there in that app and on the website. You can find other things as well in the area like restaurants, accommodations, maybe events

[00:00:54] that are going on at the different wineries. So it's your one-stop resource that goes hand-in-hand with this podcast to be able to find those great places to go visit. So check out

[00:01:04] the Texas Wine Lover website, it's txwinelover.com or go to their app. You can find it on the Google Play Store or the Apple Store as well. Enjoy your trips among the vines and use that app. In the Texas Undervine, an exploratory podcast to scout out the best

[00:01:45] Texas wine country has to offer. I'm your wine guide Scott and I'm here to lead you on an auditory expedition to the vineyards and wineries across the great Lone Star State. Each episode will cover a different vineyard, winery or wine-related business operating in Texas.

[00:02:01] You'll hear interviews, descriptions and details about each location that will excite you to visit and experience them for yourself. Ready to plan a wine tour? Use these episodes to choose the most interesting spots for you and your friends to check out.

[00:02:15] Most of all enjoy hearing about the rapidly growing wine industry in the state and what makes our wines and wineries the best. Howdy fellow Vine Tripper, welcome to episode 45 for Texas Undervine. Today I get the treat of

[00:02:42] actually bringing you three different wineries in one episode because today I went to visit Texas Wine Collective which is outside of Fredericksburg and it consists again of three different wineries all in partnership to provide one tasting room there in the Hill Country area.

[00:03:01] Now it is a combination of Brennan Vineyards which is actually based in Comanche, Texas and the second winery is Lost Oak Winery which is up in Burleson, Texas. You can hear more about Lost Oak Winery on episode 21 of this show and lastly it also features McPherson Sellers which

[00:03:22] is actually up in Lubbock, Texas. So you bring all three of these different wineries together to partner in a one tasting room so that they can all have a presence there in the Hill Country

[00:03:35] area which of course as we know is the biggest wine tourism area for the state and also nationally and even worldwide when you look at some lists. So they really wanted to have

[00:03:47] an impact and an exposure in the Hill Country area and all three of those wineries were located kind of a little further out from the Hill Country directly. So this combination has worked well

[00:04:00] to get them exposure to new people coming in wine tourists coming up and down the Hill Country road there the Wine Road 290 and it is like I said just outside of Fredericksburg. It is on the Wine Road 290 kind of when you're coming from Fredericksburg towards

[00:04:15] Johnson City it'll be just outside down on the left a little ways and that gets them again that exposure that they're looking for to a new audience. The history of this particular location actually goes all the way back to 2010 when the owners of these wineries began sharing notes

[00:04:33] and all three talking about how they wanted more of a Hill Country presence and so they decided to partner together when they first started the Texas Wine Collective. It was actually called 4.0 Sellers. There's some interesting stories behind that name and some of them may be

[00:04:50] true some of them may not you'll hear more about that in the interview but it was originally called 4.0 Sellers although it was a little confusing because there were only three wineries. Some people saw the name they thought it meant there were four but there was actually only

[00:05:04] the three wineries and so they ended up changing their name to Texas Wine Collective to more better represent the three different wineries that are there in a part of that group. So those three winemakers all got together they purchased the property there it's about six acres

[00:05:20] of space outside of Fredericksburg where they could build this tasting room where they can have a common shared space for exposure to their wines to this burgeoning wine tourism area in the state. They originally opened their doors in about 2012 but they didn't change the name

[00:05:38] to Texas Wine Collective until about three years ago or so. So for quite a while there it was known as 4.0 Sellers but they did because of the confusion there change it to Texas Wine Collective about

[00:05:51] three years ago. Now in addition to carrying the wines from three different winemakers and providers producers they're at Texas Wine Collective they also have a few other lines of wine that are under the actual Texas Wine Collective umbrella made by several of the winemakers

[00:06:09] there and a consulting winemaker that they have and those can only be found there at Texas Wine Collective. They also recently brought in high cider into the family so they actually have some

[00:06:22] cider options as well if you're interested in that you can taste that in the tasting room. Now because they have three different wine producers all in one location the tasting experience is really unique and it provides a lot of really cool options like many of these

[00:06:39] producers make single varietal wines that are the same like you might get a Temporneo from Brennan but you might also get a Temporneo from Lost Oak or from McPherson and what you can do

[00:06:51] is not only taste wines from the different places but you can even maybe taste the same varietal from different producers there so you can really get a feel for how the concept of terroir

[00:07:04] which is the French term for place where the grapes are grown and all the impacts and the weather and stuff on where those grapes are grown how that affects the flavor of the wine in addition to the winemaking style that the different winemakers use to produce them so

[00:07:19] you get to try the same varietal but maybe with different characteristics from these different producers and you get to do that side by side the tasting room kind of a very unique experience

[00:07:29] that you get to do in one tasting. In addition to the tasting room on site they also have a lot of great space uh event spaces public event spaces they have an event center they host things like

[00:07:42] weddings bridal parties all kinds of different types of events in their big event center as well as some of their smaller areas that they have and they also have a really great

[00:07:52] food truck on site called Fork and Cork that makes some great food offerings I had an amazing sandwich when I was there with bacon and figs and chicken and cheese it was so good and it really

[00:08:04] hit the spot after tasting all that great wine. Now while I was there I got to sit down with Caroline Edson she is their business development manager for Texas Wine Collective and she

[00:08:15] was able to fill me in on all things TWC a little bit about their history some of their background kind of how they got started the name change there a little bit about some of the

[00:08:26] different winemakers and the producers that they have as part of the collective and some of the ideas of what it's like when you go into the Texas Wine Collective for a tasting so without further ado let's go to the rosé room and hear a little bit from her.

[00:08:48] All right Vine Trippers I'm here at Texas Wine Collective with Caroline Edson and we're going to talk a little bit about this interesting location and the things they provide so Caroline I'm going to start with you tell me a little bit about your background what got you

[00:09:01] into the wine industry. Oh that's a good question um short answer is I was a teacher and if you're a teacher you're probably drinking wine yay teacher shout out to all the teachers um I

[00:09:14] was in education for about 25 years and taught various levels ended at middle school which is where my wine drinking really picked up I love it and um when we moved back to Texas I decided I would sort of semi-retire from education and find something else to do and

[00:09:31] I was just sort of looking around for a job and somebody said hey I'm working at this tasting room out on 290 why don't you apply we're looking for servers and I had never served wine but

[00:09:40] it turned out they weren't really hiring people for wine knowledge or that kind of experience they wanted people who could talk and teach and uh that I could do so I had to change my wardrobe

[00:09:53] dramatically go from teaching the tasting room and just I've been here almost 10 years okay um and I started as a server kind of went into a lead position and then now I'm the business

[00:10:05] development manager here and I still get to serve on the weekends because I didn't want to give that up. Do you want to give that up yeah poor still for people here in there yeah okay

[00:10:13] well tell us a little bit about this location and what makes it unique I know just for the listeners there are three different wine properties I guess you could say all kind of

[00:10:24] combined together as the Texas Wine Collective it used to be called I think 4.0 sellers is that correct um it's now called Texas Wine Collective so it's got a storied history and unique offering

[00:10:36] so tell us a little bit about the history of Texas Wine Collector. So we represent three winemakers um they're from around different parts of Texas so we've got Brennan Vineyards and Comanche which I always tell people because people most people don't know where Comanche is it's about

[00:10:49] two and a half hours northeast of here between Fredericksburg and Fort Worth that's the best way to describe it you just kind of go back roads um we've got uh Lost Oak Winery up in

[00:10:58] Burleson which is just outside of Fort Worth and then McPherson sellers out in Lubbock so we've got about two hours four hours and about six hours away. None of them um back in the

[00:11:09] had any kind of presence in the what was becoming more of the wine country of Texas so in the 2010 ish they got together they knew each other in the industry they got together and said let's

[00:11:21] find a common place um so they found this property I think we're about six acres we used to have this beautiful oak tree we called it our wedding oak and it was gorgeous and

[00:11:33] they kind of partially chose the property because of that oak which passed away a couple years ago but we get a lot of couples that come through who got married under that oak and they're very

[00:11:42] sad the oak is gone and we always say but the marriage the marriage is lasting so anyway so they bought the property we opened in April 2012 and at that point you're right we were

[00:11:52] 4.4 sellers so three years ago a little over three years ago we changed our name largely because of the misconceptions surrounding 4.0 the name so people always thought we had a fourth winemaker and we we never did um we had four locations in the family so each of our winemakers

[00:12:12] has its own tasting room and then we were the fourth in the family so that was kind of the idea the mythology the stories we tell you know that kind of become true over time the myth is that um

[00:12:25] doc McPherson who is really considered the father of our modern wine industry in Texas chemistry professor up at Texas Tech anyway Kim is one of his sons so Kim McPherson is our winemaker for McPherson sellers so the the mythology around the 4.0 name is that he was still alive

[00:12:43] when they got together and conceived this joint venture okay and he suggested they were batting names that had to do with the number three and as an academic he said you don't go for a 3.0

[00:12:54] you go for a 4.0 and that I don't think that's really true but it makes a good story is it funny how stories sometimes just take on a life of their own though these things that we accept as

[00:13:05] reality sometimes when you really get into the etymology you find out oh that was oh I think if you ask any of the servers here who've been around a while they'll tell you that story like it is

[00:13:14] the utter truth and I think somebody just made it up but maybe I'm wrong maybe it is true I don't know Kim might be able to tell us but anyway at any rate 4.0 stuck that was our name until

[00:13:24] about three years ago and then we became Texas Wine Collective nothing else changed we just simply were owning the fact that we are a collective I believe we were the first collective in the area

[00:13:37] I'm pretty sure that's true we we are definitely one of the older establishments in the area we have I think permit number 12 in the Lesley County yeah pretty proud of that but since changing our name

[00:13:49] we've actually added four different labels so we have three winemakers but we have seven labels so we've got our float wine label and that is a series of wines mostly made by Kim McPherson but

[00:14:01] our bubbles we also is not we have our TWC in-house label and these are just wines that we kind of dream up we for instance wanted another albarino so we've got a new TWC albarino that we're

[00:14:13] releasing in June super excited about that we've got our wander label which is all made by Kim McPherson as well and then we also added High Cider to the family and that brings in a really yeah

[00:14:26] that brings in some interest at just a totally different crowd and we've also been able to introduce a lot of our guests and club members to Cider and when they might not have ever ever tried it so

[00:14:37] that's a fun one too now does High Cider kind of like the other three locations are they maintaining I know they have a tasting room it's such on in high they don't they move

[00:14:47] their whole operation here last summer including their food truck and hence the food truck has become something else we've kind of owned that and changed that a little bit but yeah they're they're completely part of the family at this point they have their own bar in our tasting

[00:15:02] room and yeah it's fun well let's talk about some of those wines for a moment so you have you basically sounds like well TWC you said has several different lines of wines yes property

[00:15:14] wise you have your own kind of wines and then you have the three different other properties of wines tell me about some of those wines where where the winemakers usually source their fruit and yeah that's all of those and the Brennan's actually up in Comanche have two vineyards

[00:15:29] and they grow quite a bit of their own grape and they're growing really interesting varietals their specialty I think still remains Tempranio their Tempranios are fabulous their Viennese are fabulous that was their flagship grape they've been growing Viennese since they started

[00:15:46] but they also have a fabulous Grasiano they do a Nero de Avila they do they've got a muscat of Alexandria that we're pouring right now that is pretty interesting yeah so they've got some

[00:15:57] different grapes going on lost oak they get most of their grape from the high plains up in the you know south of Lubbock and McPherson does too so it's and you know a lot

[00:16:09] of the I think McPherson if you had to categorize his wines I think he just kind of eats and sleeps in the Rhone Valley you know he's a Rhone Valley guy yeah I mean he does other grapes his San Giovese is

[00:16:20] delicious but a lot of his blends are going to be Rhone Valley blend okay yeah a lot of Marsan Rousson yes he has a great Marsan Rousson GSMs and things like that yeah yeah

[00:16:32] and that reminds me we actually do also have a consulting one wine maker who is French he's out of Napa but he comes down here and uses Texas grapes and makes some of our wines

[00:16:44] he had a handful of them and he's been consulting with our wine makers as well so does he take some of those Texas wines that he makes here at Texas grapes back to Napa with him I hope so

[00:16:52] I hope so yeah we spread that love there as well that would be really cool you better be well so you've got the each of the wine makers making their own wines at their own locations we bring those here those Texas wine collective wines are those processed

[00:17:07] at those individual locations are they done here they're not done here we do no processing here we just are selling here okay we're just distributing straight from here direct to consume

[00:17:16] gotcha yeah so the ones that kim makes which he's the one that makes most of them are made up and love it at his place so he makes just kind of a separate line of wines that's for

[00:17:26] the Texas wine collective and gets that in addition to his own yeah okay got it just it gives us such a wide variety of wines I mean at any point we probably have

[00:17:35] 35 to 40 different wines in our inventory that we can make available so what are some of the more popular wines here what are some of the the wines that customers really love and that really

[00:17:47] you know hard time keeping in stock this time of year as the weather's warming up dry rosés I mean we can't keep dry rosés and they just kind of race out the door and we've got several

[00:17:58] different ones v&a is always a popular one with Texas white wine drinkers and again Brennan makes all three of them make v&a so they're all and it's kind of fun to do you know a comparison

[00:18:09] across them yeah um I would say lost oak's reds some of their like they've got a meritage right now that people are loving it's delicious um Brennan's I mentioned the Tempranios already those are those are delicious we also have sweet wines um and we I would say about

[00:18:29] maybe 20 to 25 percent of our visitors are sweet wine drinkers and we have a sweet wine club and and we've got like a sweet muscat right now uh we just ran out of the McPherson Sangria people

[00:18:41] come here for that really oh yeah and they're get upset if it's not here so just no we ran out we'll get more sorry you gotta make the trip up to Lubbock if you want to get some um but yeah

[00:18:53] so we do have sweet wines for those sweet cool drinkers you got a whole gamut then imagine having the three different wineries you get a lot of different blends as well as different varietals

[00:19:04] you got a lot of selection and options there yes and a lot of our job as servers is really teaching our guests about all the varietals and how they're blended and um and when you

[00:19:15] have as many options as we have there's just so much room to for conversation about the industry and and all the grapes yeah it's great fun what types of uh I know we are sitting right now in the

[00:19:27] rosé room yeah um beautiful little place here uh I got to see some of the event center with things going on there you got a tasting room you got several different places around do y'all

[00:19:37] do a lot of events here we do things like that tell me a little bit about what what goes on here oh my gosh last week we had well the okay so a regular tasting if you're just coming in just

[00:19:47] walking in uh with a reservation or not it we can make it work usually um we have three flights you choose from okay you can do an all red dry red you can do a combination of white and red or

[00:20:00] you can do a light and sweet flight and that's just a typical tasting but we also every single day do cheese and wine pairings and we have different time slots for that and you make

[00:20:08] reservations for those and that's a seated experience in what we call our board room which is part of our tasting room and it's private and it's really nice um we do each month we do a unique

[00:20:20] food and wine pairing um one or two at least uh we'll be doing in June we'll be doing uh donuts and wine we do ice cream and wine bread and wine halloween candy popcorn holiday snacks anyway

[00:20:35] lots of little debbie snacks girl scout cookies we'll kind of pair anything in wine popcorn is popcorn's fun um but then also for instance tomorrow one of our wine educators is having a tempranillo showdown and basically he is working with guests and they're going to look at three

[00:20:50] you know tempranillos from each of our winemakers and then compare them to an old world tempranillo um and he'll also at times do different food pairings like tacos or macroni and cheese or hamburgers so chili all sorts of stuff we are i feel like we're in constant like

[00:21:06] what's the next best creative thing we can do that that people might enjoy so it's fun well you mentioned earlier we were talking before we started this interview uh that you'll do a

[00:21:16] blind rosé tasting so we have a kit that we sell yeah that yeah so and we have done blind tasting with before i did a v&a recently with some club members because we had a v&a from each of

[00:21:26] our winemakers and those are super fun and those are the kinds of things that if we have the the right inventory and somebody wants to do something like that they can just call us up and say hey

[00:21:35] can can we do something slightly elevated and we can create it yeah we can make it happen about having the three different so much flexibility there exactly exactly yeah it's pretty fun and then you said reservations are helpful but not necessarily required yeah i mean for groups

[00:21:52] of six or more we we ask for them but we do have people who you know just come in and they they didn't realize that and we our motto around here is don't say no like we will figure it out

[00:22:03] okay so if you walk in and your turnouts turn them away but try to make things work but reservations are best if they can do that yeah do they do that on your website website or phone

[00:22:11] call okay one yeah yeah they can do either one and if they choose the through the different flights are is there a stand or price for each one or does it vary it varies so the red flight is

[00:22:22] is 30 for and you get five tastes but i always tell people if you're nice you're probably gonna get more different wineries i mean i interrupt you there yeah no typically you get a representation of

[00:22:31] the different wineries yeah um and then the other two flights are 25 okay yeah and then um you talked about some of the food pairings and so forth um but do you have like food options

[00:22:44] when i was walking in and saw a food truck out there tell me a little bit about some of the food options we i love our food truck it's called quark and fork and um the burgers are fabulous

[00:22:54] the french fries are fabulous we always have a special i think this weekend it's a bacon something chicken sandwich i don't anyway great chocolate chip cookies you had me a bacon right yeah um but

[00:23:05] they they're constantly coming up with different stuff but it's salad sandwiches that kind of thing and we have people who come just for the food truck that don't even come to have wine they just

[00:23:15] come and get really yeah it's kind of funny like but you can get wine too oh no we don't drink wine oh you gotta try some right you're at a winery there you go um but uh we also do charcuterie

[00:23:28] i think since covid everybody does charcuterie you know i mean i think everybody realize food is good how well that goes yeah let's have some food cheese and meat on a board on a board yeah um

[00:23:38] and then we have snack items as well um in case the because the food truck is open friday saturday sunday oh okay yeah at this point yeah yeah are there maximum group sizes that you like to no i mean

[00:23:52] we have groups that come in we do a lot of um corporate groups we have a group of dental hygienists that come every year and um so we those groups will be as you know 20 to 80 to 100 our

[00:24:04] event center can hold quite a few people um we we've had fundraisers there where we've had 150 people in there um so group size yeah we can we can pretty much work around with the event center gives us

[00:24:16] a lot of flexibility on that and we have a lot of different space sizes so this rosé room for instance is really good for two to eight people and it's a private experience um you start with

[00:24:26] the charcuterie then you get a tasting and you have an assigned server who's with you and it's really lovely you can spin tunes we have a record player and some albums everybody wants to

[00:24:37] play top gun and dirty dancing right there eight years right um but um because we have so many many different spaces and then our outdoor space when it's nice out um which you know much of the

[00:24:52] year it is um that outdoor space will be full yeah there was a whole covered patio there where you can sit in the shade your legs stuck out in the sun somewhere we have a couple outdoor pavilions

[00:25:02] and then we've got our picnic table section and we do concerts uh we've had the spasmatics play yeah that's super fun we've had thomas michael riley play um last saturday we had a dueling

[00:25:15] pianos which was great fun well definitely do that again um so yeah we have a lot of live music and we have live music every saturday too oh really okay so every week people can come

[00:25:26] yeah yeah and our the list is on our website if we was playing and we have people who follow you know certain musicians so they're coming every time those people play so oh yeah we get to

[00:25:34] know them well yeah the groupies are here it's fun what are your we talked about the food truck being here on friday saturday and sundays what are your typical operating hours for the tasting room uh sunday through thursday 11 to 5 and then friday saturday 10 to 5 30 okay yeah so you're

[00:25:49] open seven days a week basically okay i think we're closed maybe three days a year yeah yeah okay thanksgiving christmas easter yeah and then do you host any other types of events besides the live

[00:26:02] music or big parties you do weddings okay rehearsal dinners i think we had one last night they were setting up yesterday um again corporate events birthdays baby showers yeah so people can reserve the facilities we've had children's birthdays yeah it's really bad usually not past two years old

[00:26:21] what about um animals kids can people bring their dogs their cats their everything yes yeah we have not had someone bring a cat but we did have someone bring a bird one time

[00:26:32] which is really it was a little odd but yeah yeah they brought a bird it was in a cage yeah it wasn't feeling well was it asking for wine yeah holly want a wine oh but i guess it was sick and she

[00:26:44] didn't want to leave at home so she brought a bird but yes there are days when we will um have lots of dogs outside and it's really fun we do uh we partner sometimes with the spca the

[00:26:54] local shelter and we do adoption events and fundraising oh nice we actually have a formal what we call our twc gives back program and just about every month every other month of the year we sponsor a local nonprofit whether it be the grace center which is our domestic

[00:27:11] violence center in town or the needs council meals on wheels the spca and we give a portion of our proceeds on a certain day back to that nonprofit but we also will do like a food drive or a school

[00:27:24] supply drive or whatever the organization is needing at that point because i'm really i am really proud of our give back program and and it's vibrant we we donate a lot of wine to

[00:27:33] um nonprofit events in town and and i really i i i love our presence in our community freudridge versus small community but um it's a bit it's a very wealthy community but on the flip

[00:27:46] side there's a lot of need in the community and i love when businesses like ours um fully engage in in helping the community to get better cool yeah we're involved in the texas wine auction

[00:27:57] very involved in the texas wine auction actually so that's another way that we help to give back to the community specifically our hospitality workers in our community so we're we're involved

[00:28:08] with that too peace yeah i saw the i saw the dog biscuits out front i love that but when the dogs arrive when the owners arrive or the dogs arrive with their people we always give the dogs a treat

[00:28:19] and the kids when you bring your children because children are welcome as well um we have coloring and stickers and we give them fruit snacks that's kid wine there you go they get

[00:28:29] they get a little wine dog biscuit for the right oh and then uh fruit snack there for the kids exactly do if somebody did bring their kids um do you have like non-alcoholic drinks for them

[00:28:43] or do they need to bring their own or we have sodas and water yeah so there are options for the kids yeah there are yep so for tastings what is what's your busy and slow time what's the

[00:28:53] best time for somebody to come visit yeah um well obviously over the year there are some busier times like uh april and may tend to be pretty busy august tends to be pretty slow i think

[00:29:03] people are kind of going back to school teachers right well that too we're all going north um october is very busy around here in november december we kind of roll through the holidays

[00:29:16] pretty busy days of the week saturday of course is busy we get a lot of our tour groups coming through we get a lot of bridesmaids groups coming through um but fridays can be very very nice

[00:29:28] sundays middle of the week is really lovely because then you get really personalized attention and we get a lot of people who will come in and do a cheese and wine pairing on a cheese day and

[00:29:36] and they can be here for a good amount of time and just enjoy their server and sitting down and it's it's really quite nice so middle of the week is is a good time to come if that's possible

[00:29:46] unless you like the big crowds and if you want a big crowd and yeah and you're bringing your whole family come on a saturday we'll have live music and the food truck will be cranking out burgers

[00:29:54] then it's just great fun just put your reservation in on the website please do that's helpful cool yeah so interesting question here because you've got three different properties here wine club you all do three different wine clubs is there one for that includes all of them how do

[00:30:13] how do wine clubs work so our wine club um basically as a member you will take either three six or twelve bottle shipment five times a year and um we have at the three bottle level you

[00:30:27] can do the red club the white club the mix which is a mix of red and whites or we have a sweet club as well and we repeat that at the sixth level too um at six and twelve you can customize

[00:30:37] your bottles so you can pick the exact wines that you want but other if you choose not to do that whether it's three six or twelve you do get a mix of our winemakers so we try as much as

[00:30:48] possible to make sure you get something from Brennan and something from McPherson and something from Lost Oak and the the benefit I think for for our members is that we don't have a lot of repeats

[00:30:58] in the clubs your your you can always buy your favorite wine at your discount um and it you know it will unfortunately you know the wine will go away at some point because everybody else is

[00:31:08] probably buying it too but you're always getting introduced to new wines so your shipment um it's um it gives you new wines you know kind of your next favorite wine yeah some I signed my mom up

[00:31:22] for our white wine club years ago because all she wants to drink is and this is not a knock on a particular wine but all she wants to drink is Kindle Jackson Reserve Chardonnay and the liquid

[00:31:31] butter right and every time I'd go home to visit I'd be like okay we're gonna have this but we could have something else so I signed her up for our white wine club and now she loves

[00:31:42] Vermintino and Albrino and Vianier and it's really kind of fun and if I don't get her shipment to her quickly she's calling me saying I need my shipment I gotta get to the store for some Kindle

[00:31:53] Jackson let you get my shipment here the thread is real I love that and then if you had a fan of say a particular so I would think one of the um advantages of this is like for instance Lost Oak

[00:32:05] I did Lost Oak as episode 21 of my podcast with Jim and um they're up in Burleson the Dallas for Worth area but you have people who live in this area who might want to get their Lost Oak wines

[00:32:17] but they can't necessarily always get up there to Dallas so they can come here do you offer the individual wine clubs for each of the different ones or do they do pickups for

[00:32:26] those wine clubs or anything like that yeah it's hard to it's hard to do that because a lot of times we don't have the exact same wines that they have got you so it's it's a little hard to

[00:32:35] maneuver that okay um so yeah unfortunately ours is really truly just a TWC wine club okay yeah so it's a very customized where you get the mix of different things okay um but this is a place

[00:32:47] where people can go and have some Lost Oak wines exactly go up there so far so you get that benefit there well and then the the other benefit of our wine club we have great wine

[00:32:56] club pickup parties and we'll have those our wine club Sundays and all of our members come and they can bring guests with them and on those days and we do we do two Sundays a month during our

[00:33:06] pickup months and in the weeks between those or around those our members get 30 off their wines and if they come on this Sunday the exact day and they bring friends their friends get the

[00:33:16] 30 off too oh wow that's a cool benefit yeah yeah we give away a lot of wine yeah again some again some more of the people in there too yeah that's nice so if people wanted to taste their

[00:33:26] Lost Oak wines their McPherson wines their Burden wines they can come here to do that the Texas wine collective wines though are though is this the only place where they can get those

[00:33:36] wines yes thank you for asking that that's a great question those other labels I talked about the float label the Texas wine collective label the wander label those are only available here

[00:33:47] so they're exclusive to here um yeah so you can't get them at McPherson or Lost Oak or Renan yeah those come in the shipments as well occasionally they can and yes and if they're

[00:33:58] customizing some of those wines might be on the customized list for them to choose from so yeah but again they always get their discount you know yeah and every time a member comes in

[00:34:08] they get four free tastings or four free glasses okay one per person up to four people and they can go to our wine club lounge and hang out with other members and it's fun we get to know

[00:34:21] our members really well we just uh we've had a lot of people who have been members you know I had people yesterday I was serving them and I said how long have y'all been members and they said oh

[00:34:32] 15 years so I said well we've only been open 12 so maybe it's 12 well when wine gets evolved numbers get fuzzy multiply but we have had a lot of members who have been with us for a

[00:34:45] long time and they become family like we we care about them and if I know what they like wine wise and I know that we're running low on it I'll call them and say you know that uh Sangria

[00:34:56] that you love I've got you know 12 bottles left how many do you want and so it's we get to know them yeah um I did see there were some vines out front do y'all have a vineyard

[00:35:07] fear that goes into some of the wines or so we harvest those we usually sell them to another just somebody around here who wants them making wine um it's black Spanish to not

[00:35:18] in a third bridal I forget which one it is okay but they're good I mean that's a good photo photo op and we do a grape stomp every year that's a that's an annual event that we have to

[00:35:30] okay so you've been here for 12 years now uh do you have any plans for future growth adding on anything well um right when COVID hit we added our whole event center

[00:35:44] perfect timing and then we were shut down so I think um we're good for now now and maybe those are decisions beyond my level but not that I know of I think we are enjoying serving the

[00:35:58] people we serve we stay pretty busy um year round where you know I think the whole industry used to experience the sort of slow January we're not really seeing those big dips anymore there's

[00:36:08] some little dips over the course of the year but I think I think we're in a good good place so not that I know of gotcha all right well of all the different places that people can go to get wine

[00:36:20] here and the in the hill country what really sets Texas wine collective apart with me one of my listeners say I have got to put that on my list and go check it out yeah that's a good question

[00:36:30] um I I am very proud of the fact that we we are creative we will come up with experiences for just about anybody if we haven't thought of it and somebody else comes to us with

[00:36:43] an idea we will try to make it happen and we generally do but more than that even and I'm super proud of our wines too but even more than that I would put any of our servers up against

[00:36:54] any server just about anywhere else we spend a lot of time here on education we hire people who are people people um and who care about wine and are passionate specifically about Texas wine

[00:37:07] and then we train them and we teach them all about the wine um we we stand around the bar and drink our wines together every once about once every two months and try what what's in and talk

[00:37:18] about them and really go through the whole tasting process together as a team um most of our servers have been here a long while um we've got servers who've been here longer than

[00:37:29] 10 years yeah and they take care of us I mean we we really care about this is a family and so and we don't want to have turnover so we we take care of everybody we educate everybody

[00:37:39] and I think uh when we get feedback from people it is most often about the the person they'll even name a server and say I love this server I am part I come back here for this person um so we

[00:37:52] want to keep them so I really I think our customer service is top notch we we find a way to make everybody happy so that's our goal and they do just that make you happy when you are there

[00:38:14] I can attest that during my visit I had incredible customer service during my tasting um had a very knowledgeable server who was able to tell me all about the wines and it was just such a fun experience

[00:38:28] uh multiple people came over and I was able to try different types of wines from different places including some of those Texas Wine Collective offerings that they have and it was really fun to

[00:38:39] be able to to again sample different wines from different producers that may have been grown in different places as well so it's a really fun experience I promise you will not be disappointed

[00:38:49] when you go to visit now speaking of visiting make sure you check out their website before you go it's www.texaswinecollective.com and there you can find out about some of their wines before you

[00:39:04] go visit heck you could even order them online to have them shipped to you there you can also learn a little bit about some of their events that they have coming up like Caroline said in the

[00:39:13] interview you can see the listing of the bands that they're going to have playing there you'll be able to talk about reserving spaces if you want to reserve some of the places that

[00:39:21] they have on site for your own private events you can do that there you can see about their wine club that Caroline talked about in the interview and you can even read a little bit more about the

[00:39:31] team behind the whole Texas Wine Collective because it takes an interesting team of people when you're bringing three different wineries all together under one umbrella and don't forget when you go visit them make sure you tell them that you heard about them on this podcast

[00:39:47] Texas Under Vine now after my time with Caroline was done I was able to mosey on over to the tasting room to do a tasting and enjoy some of these great wines uh the doing the side by sides as well as

[00:39:59] some of the Texas Wine Collective wines and I knew there would come a point in time when I had to pick my library bottle for this episode now for those of you that know me if you've been following

[00:40:09] along on the episodes you probably have realized that I've said it a few times that I'm a big red drinker really likes my big boltatic reds and I'm actually not much of a rose fan personally

[00:40:22] I will drink it here and there but it's definitely not going to be typically the top of my list this was an example of the exception to the rule because for this particular tasting one of the

[00:40:34] ones I loved so much was actually one of the Texas Wine Collective labels of wines that they do it was the Rose called the Texas Wanderer Rose which was actually produced by Kim McPherson

[00:40:49] and McPherson Sellers and this was such a great delight it was so easy to drink it didn't have a lot of the tartness that I get sometimes from rosé's um it was so in a very fruity flavor

[00:41:02] great great summer wine and I had to pull the trigger and make a rose for the for one of the few times ever one of my library bottles for this particular episode had to come home with

[00:41:14] some extra bottles of it as well now this rosé is basically cinso based I think there's a little bit of granache and maybe even a little bit of move in there but uh but cinso based rosé

[00:41:26] for the most part and it was so easy to drink I could see myself just sitting on a nice Texas front porch sipping on this watching the sunset uh I could go on just sipping on this for hours

[00:41:37] but it was a great purchase and you gotta try it when you go but I'm gonna have to take that wine and go ahead and mosey on down the road because I do have a lot more great wine destinations to

[00:41:50] bring to you on these episodes and it's time for me to travel out to some new places now before I go though I would ask that you might do me a favor if you're interested in becoming

[00:42:00] a supporter of the show one of my patreon subscribers for just a few dollars a month you get access to behind the scenes materials some extra video like a video walkthrough uh you

[00:42:12] could get sneak peeks videos of where I'm going next so you'll be ahead of the whole audience to know what episodes are coming next and even photo galleries so I can take a lot of pictures

[00:42:23] at the wineries and upload them there so these are things that you can't get from just being a basic listener to the podcast so if you're interested in getting some of that material

[00:42:32] your support really helps me it goes a long way towards covering my travel costs the hosting costs for the podcast and all the things I have to do the purchase I have to make to bring this great

[00:42:43] content to you about Texas wine so if you're interested in becoming a patreon subscriber and one of my favorite people in the world then please go to my website it's www.texasundervine.com

[00:42:55] you'll go up to the very top there is a become a patron link there and when you click that it takes you to the patreon site you'll see the different levels that you can subscribe at there

[00:43:04] the benefits that you get from each one and again it just costs a few dollars a month so it goes a long way to really helping me out and to all of my current patreon subscribers my sincere thanks

[00:43:15] you have my heart and my thank you as well and you really help make this show possible now I have also transitioned to uh pretty much a fully video based podcast now if you're

[00:43:26] listening to this on just an audio channel through apple podcast or spotify or something like that don't forget you can actually go to my youtube channel at Texas under Vine and see these episodes

[00:43:39] in their full video glory so you'll get to see the people that I'm interviewing and their facial expressions and the things kind of added things that I put in there sometimes with the video so make sure to check that out on youtube and while you're there on youtube

[00:43:52] checking it out make sure you like subscribe and follow my channel there and while you're watching it on youtube make sure you go down and you leave a comment below the video and tell people if you've

[00:44:02] been to Texas wine collective what's your favorite thing about it or if you haven't been what are you most looking forward to seeing or tasting or checking out when you go and with that

[00:44:13] my time is up so don't forget to subscribe to the podcast subscribe to the youtube podcast as well and follow my socials to be notified anytime a brand new episode is released and until then happy trails and bottoms up y'all

[00:44:32] thanks for listening to Texas under Vine we strive to provide you with the best information about wine businesses all over Texas be sure to check out our website at texasundervine.com and follow us on our socials at Texas under Vine to stay up on all the upcoming episodes

[00:44:48] please email us with any suggestions or feedback also contact us if you're interested in donating sponsoring or advertising on the podcast just to help us cover our expenses and bring even more great info to you in future episodes above all travel safely and most especially drink responsibly

[00:45:15] Howdy Vine Trippers did you know that I now have a merchandise store for Texas under Vine I only have a handful of limited items but you can go check those out and wear your Texas under

[00:45:24] Vine swag if you'd like to tell all your friends about the great wine locations we have here in Texas and maybe get them interested in the podcast as well so there are things like t-shirts

[00:45:33] there are there's a hoodie there's a beady a ball cap things like that but one of the most exciting things I have right now is my limited time offer t-shirt that's my season one t-shirt

[00:45:44] so this is your tasting through Texas Texas under Vine season one t-shirt it's only going to be available for a little short amount of time on the back it has all the different locations like

[00:45:53] a band tour t-shirt so this is a limited time item and you can go out and get it now and one of the great things about that t-shirt is a portion of every sale goes to support the Texas Hill Country

[00:46:04] Winery Scholarship Fund so you know that by buying that t-shirt you're also investing in the growing and flourishing of an amazing wine industry here in Texas and all of those people

[00:46:15] that are going to come and make it even better check out that merchandise store it's on my website at Texasundervine.com just go up to the top you'll see the link for the merchandise store