Area wine lovers needn't travel to California or France to experience a full-bodied cabernet or a sweet muscadine right off the vine.
East Texas is home to several wineries that open their doors each Saturday to residents and out-of-town guests in search of tastings and tours.
Christy Wooten/The Daily Sentinel |
Marnelle de Wet Durrett is one of two winemakers at Kiepersol Estates. Her family, the de Wets, opened the winery on 14 acres of land in 1999, and has since expanded the business to sixty acres of red grape varietals.
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Christy Wooten/The Daily Sentinel |
Kiepersol Estates restaurant, within walking distance of the winery, offers a wide variety of private label wines and a full bar for an evening cocktail or cognac with dinner.
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Among those closest to Nacogdoches and Lufkin is Sweet Dreams winery in Palestine, where owners Mike and Sandra Pell produce a number of sweet and semi-sweet fruit wines.
From summer-style sangrias to varied blends of muscadines, visitors can enjoy samples of wine, wine-a-ritas and peach bellinis from the shady porch of the winery that has been known to feature local musicians on the guitar. Tastings are $4.
One of the most unique wines made at the winery is the Texas County Roads red, Mike said, adding that the wine comes from the wild mustang grape.
"The wild grape grows on county roads, fences and in the trees of East Texas," he said. "That's why we call it that. We pick the grapes on Texas county roads."
Wines at Sweet Dreams range from $13.99 to $15.99 per bottle and can be purchased in splits for less.
The idea to start making wine came to Mike after he won a homemade bottle at a state Christmas Tree Growers Association convention one year. He said he thoroughly enjoyed the sweet wine, but when he was unable to obtain more of it, he decided to make his own.
Using a friend's recipe, Mike made his first sweet wine at home, enjoying the process and giving friends a sample of the different variations he made. It didn't take long before friends and family were regularly coming over to fill up empty Coke and Pepsi bottles with Mike's sweet wine.
The positive response to his homemade wine caused Mike to enter a blackberry grape blend into a magazine competition that won him a gold medal.
That's when the couple uncorked their entrepreneurial spirit.
"We were pretty impressed," he said of his success at the competition. "And that's when we decided we were going to open a winery and see what happens."
The winery opened in 2006.
Sweet Dreams is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, and at various times throughout the week, depending on the couple's schedule. It is located on CR 441 in Palestine. To find out more about Sweet Dreams, call (903) 549-2027.
Maydelle Country Wines owner Steven Harper is known in the East Texas region as a fruit vintner. Using everything from lemon and lime to grapefruit, Harper makes a unique variety of citrus wines.
"Citrus is my specialty," he said.
His winery near Rusk is located in a nearly 100-year-old depot along the Texas State Railroad, where varieties of citrus, fruit, muscadine and blush wines are made throughout the year.
"It's blackberry season now," he said. "Then I go right into peach, and I will end my year doing elderberry ... My winery is basically geared to do fruit."
Harper touts that each batch he makes is kept small for a "personal taste," and wines are made to not only have a pleasant taste, but "to be down right fun" to drink.
Wines at Maydelle Country Wines range from $8.25 for fruit wines to $15.25 for the grape wines.
In addition to tastings, the winery offers root beer on tap for kids and has wooden trains and friendly cats for them to play with, while parents enjoy samples of Harper's sweet wine.
Harper got his start in wine making with an at-home kit he received as a present.
"I had never made wine in my life," he said. "It just sounded like something fun to do."
And, it was, he said. Almost five years ago, he turned his hobby into a full-time profession.
Maydelle Country Wines is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 2 to 6 p.m. Sundays during the summer and fall months. The winery is located on CR 2108 off state Hwy. 84 in Maydelle. To find out more on tasting prices and this winery, call (903) 795-3915.
To see an up close look at the process of how wine is made, head over to Kiepersol Estates Winery in Bullard, where the de Wet family produces roughly 19 different wines, including a renowned cabernet.
Tours, $5, take wine lovers through the processing facility, where grapes are fermented, barreled and tested. The tours are from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and have a maximum capacity of 20 people.
The winery's tasting room enables visitors to sample wines for $1 a taste. Samples are 1-ounce pours, and the tasting fee is waived for those who purchase four or more bottles, according to wine maker Marnelle de Wet Durrett, whose family owns and operates the winery.
Wines range from $12 to $50, depending on the type and vintage, and Durrett said it's not uncommon for visitors to enjoy a bottle on the veranda of the tasting room, overlooking the vineyards.
Walking distance from the winery is the Kiepersol Estates Restaurant, where visitors can enjoy a delicious meal from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday or 5:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday through Friday and 5:30 to 10 p.m. Saturday. Adjacent to the restaurant is the Kiepersol Estates Bed and Breakfast, which features uniquely decorated rooms, some of which include a private screened porch with a hot tub. Rooms, named for different wine regions, range from $155 to $195 during the weekend.
"It's sort of a destination place," Durrett said of Kiepersol Estates.
Kiepersol Estates also offers several events throughout the year, including a Harvest Festival, where festival-goers can stomp grapes and sample wines, and monthly vintner dinners, where visitors enjoy four-course meals paired with unique wines selected by a wine maker.
This year's Harvest Festival will be on Oct. 10, and vintner dinners are held at 7 p.m. the second and third Wednesday of every month at the bed and breakfast.
The winery is located at 3933 FM 344 East and is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday or by appointment. For more information on this winery, call (903) 894-8995.
