Along the bottom side of the upright triangle connecting Houston, Austin, and San Antonio runs Texas Highway 10. And along this route is the small, rustic town of Seguin. And just a short drive from old downtown Seguin is Blue Lotus Winery, a cozy tasting room with Texas wine/mead and great service.
I found myself in the area while on a “camping” trip. I put “camping” in quotes because we were staying at a motel with air conditioning, a bathtub, and hot breakfast. The Wine Fairy doesn’t camp, but we’re happy to drop in on friends who are camping and bring them wine and mead. Anyway, we had made good time on the morning drive from Dallas and we had a few hours to kill before we could check in to our luxe accommodations at the Best Western.
The tasting attendant greeted us at 11 am sharp, pulling back the heavy doors to the stuccoed Tuscan-style building that houses the tasting room. It’s a spacious, plant-filled space with inviting cafe tables and chairs. A wall of picture windows opens to a sunny patio with a gazebo and and rows of vines.
We shared two flights of wine ($15 each) to get an overview of the different styles on offer. Most of the wine selections are dry reds. Blue Lotus makes two Bordeaux-style blends (named Left Bank and Right Bank), a Montepulciano, a Tempranillo, a Malbec, and the dark and intense Black Lotus (from Lenoir, which local wineries also call Black Spanish). For white wine drinkers, there’s a few selections. We tried a semi-sweet Orange Muscat, a dry white made from the native hybrid Herbemont and a dry Viognier with succulent peach notes.
As morning turned into afternoon, the tasting room started to fill up with locals and repeat visitors. The flavored mead is definitely a big draw here, and the tap filled with carbonated blackberry mead (dark as grape soda, and almost as sweet) was always pouring. Taking a cue from the regulars, we opted for glasses of chilled raspberry mead and retired to the back patio. The sky was blue and wide, the breeze was cool, and we giggled and sipped the pink nectar while a donkey, a goat, and a dog watched curiously from an adjacent pasture.
Blue Lotus wines and meads (the latter are bottled as Texas Mead Works) are all made exclusively from Texas grapes and Texas honey. Some of the black grapes are grown right at this 12-acre estate in Seguin, and the honey comes from local beekeepers. (Blue Lotus’s other property in Hye isn’t growing grapes for production just yet. Their website reports that they are one of the Texas wineries waiting to receive the new Pierce’s Disease-resistant Walker vines. In 3-5 years perhaps, you’ll be able to sip red wines grown in Hye, Texas as well.)
While the European-style wines are courageous endeavors, the mead is what Blue Lotus/Texas Mead Works is really known for. The barrel-aged, vanilla-tinged Minstrel’s Mead is a staple at renaissance fairs and LARP-y gatherings. Texas Mead Works supplies both the massive Texas Renaissance Festival outside of Houston and the Hill Country’s smaller Enchanted Village Renaissance Faire and Feast.
The retail space inside the Seguin tasting room is amply stocked with bottles of flavored mead: Blackberry, Peach, Raspberry. (Yes, I know these fruited meads are technically melomel, but it’s fine to just call it mead, mmkay?) There’s also seasonal and limited offerings, like Cranberry Orange mead just in time for fall.
Texas Mead Works produces one dry-ish style, their Traditional Mead. It wasn’t available to taste on the day we visited. But like Minstrel’s Mead, it’s sold in stores around the state and I’m happily familiar with its bouquet of honey, citrus blossom, and chamomile or dry hay. Both are solid examples of their style–and for many mead fans, one of those two bottles was the first Texas mead we ever tasted.
Looking for something novel? The best souvenir from this part of Texas just might be a bottle of Jalapeno Mead ($21). It’s not terribly spicy, with prominent honey-sweetness and floral musk and just a hint of peppery bite on the finish. My friend fell in love with the Cinnamon Roll mead and bought two bottles to drink at home. “It tastes exactly like sipping a cinnamon roll!” he said. (I’ll let the reader decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.) Dessert wine explorers may also enjoy tasting the Cyser, a mead-cider hybrid of honey, apples, and spices that the winery describes as “apple pie in a glass.”
One more thing to mention about Blue Lotus in Seguin: You can stay in a wine barrel! Yes, it’s true–Blue Lotus has three barrel-shaped rental cabins. This unique experience comes with pool access and complimentary snacks and coffee and you get to sleep only steps from the tasting room and vineyards. We didn’t try it this time–Best Western was calling my name–but it’s something to put on the bucket list.
All in all, Blue Lotus Winery is worth a stop when you’re puttering around the borders of the Hill Country, or as a half-day trip from San Antonio. It’s got great hospitality, great views, and it’s off the beaten path from the craziness that is Fredericksburg’s wine scene. Bring your sweet tooth and enjoy a truly local, artisan beverage made right here in Texas.
Where: Blue Lotus Winery, Seguin, TX (about 40 minutes northeast from San Antonio)
When: Wednesday through Sunday 11 AM – 6 PM (closed Monday and Tuesday)
How much: Wine or mead tasting (5 pours) $15, bottles $20-$38, select wine or mead by the glass $8
Wine barrel cabin rentals from $200/night (adults only, no pets)
Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.
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