S2 EP0029 - Wine Reads - Fredericksburg Pleases the Palate in a Texas-Size Way

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube, and visit my winery in the Finger Lakes at Missick Cellars.&#160;<br/><br/>Episode 0029:<br/><br/>Wine Reads &#8211; January 1, 2022<br/><br/>Hi, this is Chris Missick, and welcome to Viti+Culture, and our segment Wine Reads, where we take a look at some of the most interesting, compelling, and even controversial stories and articles in wine.&#160; On the heels of this holiday break, I have decided to take a few spur of the moment trips, one to the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina, and the other to the Texas&#160; Hill Country in mid-January.&#160; I&#8217;ve heard so many great things about both regions, and the Hill Country in particular, and figure it will be a nice break from the upstate winter we&#8217;ll be fully enmeshed in.&#160; With that in mind, my Google News Alert with the keyword Finger Lakes popped up with this message about Fredericksburg, widely considered the heart of the Texas Hill Country AVA.&#160; It&#8217;s an AP wire story, so I don&#8217;t have an author to directly credit, but you can find the article by googling the title, <a href="https://www.gmtoday.com/travel/fredericksburg-pleases-the-palate-in-a-texas-size-way/article_6786895a-6189-11ec-abd3-5790f1baa39a.html">Fredericksburg pleases the palate in a Texas-size way</a>.<br/><br/>So here we go:<br/><br/>&#8220;California has Napa and Sonoma; New York has the Finger Lakes and Texas has Fredericksburg,&#8221; said Jesse Barter, owner of Hill & Vine Restaurant as he poured a ruby-hued Tempranillo into my glass.<br/><br/>It does indeed. The Hill Country west of Austin and north of San Antonio includes Texas-sized acreage devoted to wine production, making it the second largest AVA (American Viticultural Area) in the U.S.<br/><br/>The Central Texas Hill Country is one of two major wine-producing regions in the state &#8211; the other being the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains) in Texas' northwestern corner.<br/><br/>Here in the Hill Co