The Wine Fairy

Eight hilltop acres, 10 Texas wines, and one lanky bird added up to a memorable Friday when we took the road north to Blue Ostrich Winery and Vineyard.

This popular North Texas winery is located in Saint Jo, Texas and is part of the new-ish Texoma AVA. It’s about 90 minutes from DFW and practically within spittin’ distance of the Oklahoma border.

Precisely at noon, the automatic gate swung open. We climbed the short driveway to the windowed wine pavilion and tasting room. Under the shade of live oaks and the sound of windchimes, we spotted the double wooden doors that led into a cozy saloon. (A wine saloon!)

Inside we met our server, Levi, who talked us through a brief history of the property and the day’s wine options. Blue Ostrich offers wine by the glass, bottle, and flight. The kitchen serves made-to-order flatbreads and cheese boards. Canned soft drinks and water are available for non-drinkers.

If the tasting room’s peaked roof and metal siding makes it look a bit like a barn, that’s because it is! The property was formerly an ostrich ranch and the large central building once housed incubators and hatchlings.

Ostrich burgers and sizzling platters of ostrich meat fajitas were a lean-protein craze of the 1990s. I’m certain I’ve dined on eggs and meat from this farm at restaurants all over Texas. (Ostrich meat is not great…I like wine better!) When the demand for ostriches eventually declined, the owners of the ranch switched over to winemaking.

There are still two adult ostriches at Blue Ostrich Winery–an older female and a large, sassy male, Jesse. Jesse was watching patrons expectantly from a corner of his pen as soon as they set foot on the ranch.

However, before I could summon the nerve to approach a Jurassic-looking creature two feet taller than me, it was time for some wine. My wife, Sarah, and I were seated in the spacious, light-filled former hatchery. With cool AC, plentiful tables, and sweeping views of the Red River valley, we settled in to enjoy the wines.

Despite the ostrich-y theme, the winery’s menu is far from “flightless.” Blue Ostrich offers three different pre-set flights to accommodate white, red, and sweet wine drinkers. Each flight costs $14 and includes four pours. All of the wines on the wine tasting menus are also available by the glass ($12), amounting to a by-the-glass list of a dozen wines, plus any daily specials.

I had tasted quite a few of Blue Ostrich’s wines lately, at the Drink North Texas Wine Festival in May and more recently at the Lone Star International Wine Competition. So I briefly considered grabbing a bottle of one of my favorites to revisit it. But the place had just opened and there was plenty of time for a leisurely tasting. I ordered both dry flights, the Blue Ostrich Flight (whites) and the Red Ostrich Flight (red) to share with Sarah.

The wines were poured in sequence by Levi, with explanations and short descriptors for each. With the exception of some of the sparkling and dessert wines, all of Blue Ostrich’s bottlings are from 100% Texas fruit. There are some estate vines here producing Viognier, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot–but most of the grapes come from growing partners in the Texas High Plains AVA.

The opener–and Blue Ostrich’s crowd-pleaser, I would venture to guess–was the Lantana. Lightly sweet with floral aromas and flavors of just-ripe peach and green apple, this medium-dry Riesling is the perfect wine to chill and drink on a wrap-around porch with your favorite snacks.

Next up was the 2023 Vin Blanc, a dry Roussanne-based blend from grapes grown in Boyd, Texas (Wise County). It was followed by a peachy, low-acid 2024 Viognier. The Blanc de Blancs fizz (from Lodi, California Chardonnay grapes), sparkled with refreshing flavors of apple, fennel, lemon, and ginger.

While sipping my way through the Blue Ostrich flight, I stole a nip or two of Sarah’s Red Ostrich tasting. (Hey, sometimes you gotta try it all!)

The opener was a 2023 GSM (25% Grenache, 35% Syrah, 40% Mourvèdre), pale-ish with ripe red plum and ripe raspberry. The 2022 Syrah (Ratliff Vineyard, Wise County) was softly textured with red and black berries, chocolate, baking spice, rooibos and rosehip tea. The 2022 Mourvèdre (Gillmore Brothers Vineyard, just west of Lubbock) offers up muted red plum, brewed tea, silty tannins, and some elusive wet iris/violet at the bottom of the glass.

The standout among these reds, we unanimously thought, was the 2022 Tempranillo from Reddy Vineyards (Terry County, near Brownfield). It’s the darkest of the bunch with a pleasing spicy nose, plenty of black plums and a savory, meaty finish.

Sweeter palates will enjoy the Black Ostrich Flight, which starts with the Lantana Riesling and moves on to three dessert wines: A sweet expression of Viognier, a rosé of Syrah, and the “Cielo” American red blend. Ordering two (or all three) of the tastings and sharing them is a great way to taste the range of styles that Blue Ostrich has on offer.

Thus fortified, I went back outside to meet the big bouncy biped. He was waiting by the gate. He bent his neck and flapped his wings in an elaborate dance. Then he proceeded to chase me all along the fence line, craning (ostrich-ing?) his neck between the wires to get a closer look. (I’m not into birds, my dude…but thanks anyway?) That’ll be the last time I wear white and black to an ostrich ranch!

As a believer in Texas Sangiovese, I didn’t want to leave without a pour of Blue Ostrich’s version. The 2022 vintage had just won the Best in Category (Sangiovese) medal at Lone Star International Wine Competition, and I was eager to raise a toast to its success.

This Wise County Sangio leans pale and bright with a medium body. More Texan than Tuscan, it says “howdy y’all” with cheerful fruity and herbal notes: Fresh and dried red cherry, old-fashioned spice candy, oregano, and tarragon. This style is wonderful lightly chilled, with grilled food, semi-hard cheeses, or on its own.

On the day we visited, Blue Ostrich had a bottle of their Orange Muscat open, so we topped off our tasting with this luscious, citrus-scented dessert wine. We snagged a bottle of Lantana (for my parents–not big wine people, but they enjoyed this one). We bagged up the rest of the Sangiovese to take home. (Safety first!)

The Production and Operations Manager, Presley, gave us the lowdown on upcoming events and wine releases. The windows behind the bar steamed up as we watched the winery crew scrubbing equipment for the next Blue Ostrich vintage.

Blue Ostrich Winery is a wonderful place to take your crew for a Wild West feel and authentic Texas wines. The people are welcoming–and the ostriches are, too.

And the views? You can see for miles. Though the property itself has an eight-acre footprint, the highway easement on one side and the north-facing slopes on the other make it seem epically vast. The roller-coaster stretch of Highway 82 that brought us to the winery had vistas that took our breath away. (Sarah and I are flatlanders, in case you couldn’t tell.)

Blue Ostrich has a wine club (members get discounts and exclusive invitations). There’s a busy seasonal event calendar on their website. Reservations are recommended for groups, especially on good weather weekends when people flock (sorry for the puns) to the winery for live music.

P.S. I had a hunch that Blue Ostrich’s lean, savory Sangiovese might go nice with a piece of bone-in country ham. Cracker Barrel’s is my favorite–but I know better than to try to get service there on a weekend afternoon. (Mama didn’t raise no fool.)

Instead, we stopped for groceries and I cooked up my own meat-and-three. We finished the bottle with an evening meal of Southern-style green beans, Texas ham, and taters.

Where: Blue Ostrich Winery & Vineyard, 5611 FM 2382, Saint Jo, TX 76265

How much: Tastings $14, wine by the glass $12, wine by the bottle $25-$35

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.