The Wine Fairy

The Californication will continue until morale improves! Yes, it’s true: Tech and finance dollars–combined with voracious agrotourism–are coming for Texas’s wine industry. The great relocation of California residents to Texas has kept up its pace, remaining the largest state-to-state migration pattern every single year since 2020.

We’re all feeling anxious about it. “Don’t California My Texas” reads the popular bumper sticker, expressing the widespread fear that the Californians have come here to ban beef and guns, turn all the kids into drag queens, and ride around in those creepy self-driving electric thingamajigs.

Here at The Wine Fairy, we do not buy into all that tribalism and fear-mongering. As a proud native Texan, I can say I have met numerous California transplants who also happen to be very nice people.

However, I have to admit that the California invasion of Texas has brought in some pretty lame bullcrap: Exorbitant rents and parking charges, kombucha, flatbreads, In-N-Out Burger, honking at red lights. And now, it seems like we’re fixin’ to add another one to the list: Snooty, overpriced wine tasting rooms.

For years, wine fans have been complaining about the commercialization and price inflation in California’s best-known wine regions. Once populated by scrappy bunches of experimental winemakers, these storied hills have become a playground for the 1%. Napa has long been out of reach for young, budget-conscious wine lovers and service industry folks. Sonoma and Paso Robles, take note: Y’all are next. And after your turn, it’s probably ours.

In a recent Wine 101 podcast, Keith Beavers discusses how Napa is beginning to be known as the “Disney World of wine.” Like Disney World, it’s become a game-ified process of juggling reservations to try and get the most out of each day. And like Disney World, it’s an iconic American vacation that’s now basically unaffordable for a large swath of the middle class.

He relates a story about the frustration and expense involved in a recent trip to Napa by a wine-loving traveler:

They knew it was going to be very expensive. That was not a problem for them. But what was an issue for them was that they were going to spend a bunch of money, a bunch of time, have a bunch of fun and they did not want to regret it once. And the nervousness they were experiencing is that every tasting room–not every, but most, a lot of tasting rooms in Napa–need to pre-booked. And they’re pretty expensive and it’s not easy to just bop around Napa and enjoy yourself. You kinda have to plan it out.

He goes onto discuss the numerous challenges of touring Napa these days. There’s not really a lot of places to hang out downtown. Getting a ride is hard because thousands of smartphones are chasing a handful of rideshare drivers. Most of the restaurants close early because no one that works there can afford to live in Napa Valley and they need to get home in the evening. And yes, booking wine tastings and dinners is crazy expensive.

The podcast includes a recommendation to go to Napa at least once if you possibly can–but also to consider taking less hyped, less pricey wine trips. He finishes the episode with several recommendations for up-and-coming wineries near Charlottesville, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

That’s all great advice. Smaller, lesser-known regions can indeed provide a much better value for your wine tourism dollar. But what if your homegrown wine industry catches a bad case of the Napa flu? What if the disease is accelerated by wealthy Texpats from California who don’t mind dropping $100 per couple to taste samples of four or five so-so wines?

I went to Fredericksburg, Texas recently–the center of Texas wine country. The Texas High Plains AVA technically grows more grapes, but most of our better-known wineries are in the “wine trapezoid” between Fredericksburg, Llano, Burnet, and New Braunfels.

I was shocked at how much it’s changed. I have fond memories of “bopping around” the region, as perhaps you could do in Napa decades ago. While I’m rooting for the success of our Texas wineries, I feel sad that the casual wine-tourism experiences I remember are nowhere to be found.

I remember going to Hill Country wineries on weekend trips as a student, and also as a kid with my parents. We toured cellars and vineyards, shook the hands of winemakers, and chased barn cats around the small rural estates. I don’t remember there being a charge for tastings–and if there was, it was nominal and waived with the purchase of a few bottles. Many of the wines weren’t too great, but that wasn’t the point. Trapped beneath those corks were stories and memories. Most crucially, the tasting rooms served as a way to create awareness of the wines and promote brand loyalty, not to be a profit center in and of themselves.

In the fall of 2023, I had my first immersive wine-tasting experience in the region in several years. Fredericksburg was in a post-pandemic, revenge-travel boom cycle. It’s a good thing for the industry…but it also kind of blows.

We rounded up a group of 14 (mostly my friends from college and their partners) for a weekend of wine tasting in and around Fredericksburg. Here is what we found:

For starters, the wineries and their environs looked great. I mean, simply beautiful. We saw day spas, golf courses, wedding venues, guest villas with pools, multi-million dollar tasting rooms with soaring ceilings and expansive verandas. Lawns were freshly sodded and mowed. Long-legged, tanned influencers in sundresses and giant hats were snapping pictures. Riedel glasses glinted in the sun. The charcuterie boards were a-flowing across manicured cobblestones, and designer puppies strained at their leashes to catch a whiff.

Reservations were required nearly everywhere. Despite having been booked in advance, our table at the second winery stop wasn’t ready on time, which created a kink in the schedule. For the rest of the afternoon, we found ourselves hustling out of tasting rooms to make it on time to the next winery. Many places allow walk-ins for smaller groups–but even so, on a busy weekend you’re unlikely to get a table or even a seat at the bar.

The tastings were no-frills affairs, with our group sitting elbow to elbow at long tables or hovering around a counter. No production room, cellar, or vineyard tours were on the agenda. At most, each tasting began with a hastily recited spiel about the founding couple’s “wine journey” or “unique vision.”

The average tasting was $25 or $30 per person, and the pours weren’t generous. Many places had unfriendly guest policies posted, including table time limits, order minimums, and auto-gratuities. The wines were fine–certainly much better than they had been on previous visits to the Hill Country–but service was often rushed and indifferent. The tasting rooms began to blur together, a glossy and shallow amalgam of Magnolia farmhouse chic.

The most noticeable Napa-esque trend was the prominence of memberships. True, Texas wineries have long had subscription clubs. They helped to guarantee sales of the vintage and to get around Texas’s patchwork of archaic liquor laws. What’s new is the explosion of members-only bottlings and members-only clubhouses, events, and tasting rooms. Texas wineries, it seems, have taken to membership sales for a more obnoxious reason: It’s a way to keep the riff-raff out of their shining wine country clubs.

Now, I’ve never been to Napa, and I’m sure I would enjoy it if I did. I enjoyed my Hill Country trip immensely. However, certain aspects of it were how I imagine the Napa experience has become: Kind of stressful and awfully expensive relative to amount of wine and the quality of service that you receive.

I’m happy to talk numbers here. We had one tasting day (a Saturday) where we visited 4 or 5 wineries. One was Barons Creek, which looks like a suburban gated community and charges $25-$30 for a basic tasting. Another was the Rhinory. Their grounds boast a real live rescued rhinoceros and charges $30 for a tasting or $50 for a reserve tasting. It’s another $150 per person to meet the rhino (a “Pinnacle Experience” that had completely sold out on the weekend we visited).

We were a large-ish party, so reservations were generally subject to a deposit and minimum gratuity. We did standard tastings–no reserve pours, food pairings, or custom experiences for us. Our group split a 5-bedroom Airbnb on the edge of town and rented a passenger van to take us between wineries. We saved a ton by sharing the house (and bedrooms, in some cases) and drafting a non-drinking friend to do all the driving. We did not meet the rhino.

Still, one couple’s share of the accommodations, van rental and gas, and tasting/reservation fees amounted to about $1800. Add on money for meals and wine, and it felt like splurging on a real vacation, not a Texas road trip with friends. To join the wine clubs at all the places we visited and gain access to membership perks would require an annual outlay of several thousand dollars more.

What accounts for the skyrocketing prices in the Texas wine country? Fundamentally, this is a supply and demand issue. There is certainly demand. Napa (and soon Fredericksburg) can charge what they want for parties, tours, and tastings because there are enough people willing to pony up. That’s not, in itself, a terrible thing: Running a winery is very expensive, and selling pricey experiences can help subsidize the cost of producing excellent wines for the broader wine-drinking market.

Then, there’s the location. Many people attribute the high prices in Napa to the big pile of boomer money and tech money sitting just down the road in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s easy to drive up to the wineries for a weekend trip (or arrive by private jet), and so people do. The industry caters to big spenders, and regular people get priced out. About a year ago, Reddit user “Send_Lawyers” lamented:

A round of golf. Couple of Ubers to our fav vineyards for tastings and two dinners is going to set us back 3-4K. WTF.

We could fly to France direct, take a train to Boudreaux and drink in downtown Boudreaux wine bars for two days staying in a nicer hotel for the same damn price.

In retrospect, the once-bucolic Hill Country region’s fate has probably always been sealed. It’s just an hour and half from the Californian-magnet city of Austin, and four hours from the rapidly growing tech/finance hub of Dallas-Fort Worth. There’s private airports, thousand-acre ranches, and golf and hunting resorts nearby. Fredericksburg, like Napa, is blessed with proximity to both money and thirst.

Okay Wine Fairy, you say: You don’t get to have it both ways. You don’t get to complain about a tasting room that’s crowded and also about the high prices that help cull the crowds. You don’t get to wish for the success of Texas’s wine industry and then pray that it stays small. You can’t whine about the decline of interest in wine-drinking, and also cuss the throngs of tech bros and bachelorette parties that are evidently paying the wineries’ bills.

When I reflect on my recent trip, I feel both sadness and resignation. I’m at peace with gentrification, generally. You can’t stop it–and even if you could, it really doesn’t make economic sense to try. Subsidizing unprofitable industries is short-sighted, and people taking risks and building cool things deserve to have those efforts pay off.

As a wine tourist, I usually don’t mind paying for tastings and tours even at the new, California-inflected prices. Despite some stress and sticker shock, these experiences are generally worthwhile. The pain of a $50 tasting fee fades eventually, but the memories and knowledge you gain tend to stick around.

I’ve also come to terms with the online reservation systems. I resisted them for a long time–partly because I was a late-adopter of smartphones and partly because I just think it’s ridiculous to make a reservation to drink a glass of wine on a patio.

Listen: I love spontaneity. I’m nostalgic for the days of puttering around the back roads of Texas and pulling off the highway when you see a winery sign. But as wages rise and workers push back against the worst parts of hospitality jobs (both good things!), the reservation system is the norm. It arguably makes more sense for wineries. Now they can staff appropriately, guarantee shifts to workers, and not just have servers hanging around the tasting room in case people decide to drop in.

As I regard all the changes, I just wish–and perhaps this is a naive wish–that Texas wineries and wine education will continue to be accessible to people without a whole shit-ton of money. To casually interested wine drinkers. To students. To service industry people. To vacationing families who are squeezing a vineyard visit into a vacation of roadside attractions and state parks, the way my own family used to do.

Also–and this goes without saying–Texas is not Napa. Texas wines are improving year by year, winning awards and such–but they will likely never catch up, because California’s soil and climate is close to perfect and that’s that. When you come to Texas wineries, you’ll often find fragrant, medium-sweet wines from Southern grapes (Muscadine, Blanc du Bois) and beefy, warm-climate clones of Italian red wine styles. There’s plenty to enjoy here. But to charge big bucks for tastings as if these are the finest wines in the world is just laughable.

As the Fredericksburg wine scene gets flashier and more exclusive, it’s hard not to feel like something important has been lost. And yet, I can’t really fault the wineries for trying to make money when and where they can. A winery is not a community center. Maybe it just doesn’t work financially to have a tasting room where people can walk in, buy some of your product, and hang out all day. (We already tried that with craft breweries–and now look at how many of those are going bust.)

I’m planning another Hill Country wine excursion for this year, but on a smaller scale. We’ll probably drop in on a winery or two on the way to visit friends in the center of the state. As much as I enjoy Fredericksburg wines, I just can’t justify the expense of hotels and reservations for a rushed, impersonal experience–especially when there are plenty of wine activities right here in my backyard of DFW.

The Lone Star State is set to continue with its tech-fueled growing pains. My fervent hope is that wineries will find a way to offer wine bliss to high-rollers and day-trippers alike.

Further reading:

Austin American-Statesman: More people move to Texas from California than any other state, report says. Here’s why.

BK Wine Tours: Is Napa Valley pricing itself out of the market for wine tourism and for wine?

New York Times: Has the Craft Beer Industry’s Keg Finally Kicked?

Listen:

Wine 101 Podcast: Wine in Transition: Looking Forward and Reflecting on the Past: Part I

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.