It’s a scary time for the wine biz. Our thumbs are tired from scrolling past news about winery closures, sales slumps, and layoffs…and all the associated think pieces. (Why won’t the youngins put down their phones and drink some wine? Is it housing costs, social anxiety, vape pens, or wine snobbery that we should blame? Who knows?)
But Texas is one place where you can still find examples of growth and investment in the world of wine. As we get ready to welcome the New Year, it’s a perfect time to look back at these five stories that made us smile in the last quarter of 2025.
Story #1: Llano Estacado stakes out a major expansion in the Hill Country.
After its acquisition last year, Texas’s largest (and second-oldest) winery is movin’ on up. Llano Estacado has a $3 million tasting room in the works, expected to open in 2027.
Llano’s Vintners Estate–which broke ground in November–will be located on US Highway 290. (It’s on the site of the former Airis’Ele Winery.) The new 6,300-square-foot building will offer tastings and experiences in the heart of the growing Wine Road 290 destination.
The venture joins Llano’s original production facility in Lubbock, and its forthcoming 41-room boutique hotel in Fredericksburg’s popular Main Street district. Llano’s investment represents a broader trend toward expanding wine tourism in Texas, even when other states’ industries are shrinking.
Story #2: Houston Rodeo Uncorked! winners announced.
Each year, Texas winemakers and their fans eagerly await the results of the Rodeo Uncorked! wine competition. Once a sidebar to the humongous Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo event, it’s now one of the largest and most respected wine contests in the country.
Rodeo Uncorked! is judged blind and attracts entries from all over the world–but especially from Texas and this year’s featured region, Oregon. In November 2025, a panel of 130 judges tasted 3,127 entries and awarded medals to the best-tasting wines.
Texas wine is improving year by year–but judges evidently haven’t lost their taste for fine Napa Valley wine. The most prestigious awards (Grand Champion Best of Show and Reserve Grand Champion Best of Show) went to Chimney Rock Cab and Sequoia Grove Chardonnay, respectively. The Top Texas Wine prize went to Friday Mountain “Frenchman’s Corner” Mourvèdre. These and other select winners will be showcased during the 2026 Houston Rodeo season.
A total of 521 Texas wines received medals in this year’s competition, including many of our local favorites! Texas Wine Lover has the complete list of medalists from Texas.
Story #3: New Texas sparkling wine facility offers tours and tastings.
Fredericksburg got a little bubblier with the opening of a newly built sparkling wine production site, called Invention Vineyards. The winery is a project of parent company Heath Family Brands, which owns Grape Creek Vineyards, Heath Sparkling Wines, and others. They expect to produce around 25,000 cases of wine per year via the traditional (Champagne) method.
In the one-hour interactive tour experience, Texas wine enthusiasts will get behind-the-scenes access to the production facility. A guide explains the art of sparkling winemaking from fermentation to aging. Guests get to sample two sparkling wines during the tour, and conclude their visit with a customized wine flight from Heath’s portfolio.
Tours are available daily and tickets ($45) are available online. Reservations are required for groups of 6 or more.
Story #4: Charleston Taylor opens for classes, tastings, and events.
In other Hill Country news, Johnson City got a new winery destination in 2025: Charleston Taylor Estate Winery. Founded by newcomers to Texas, the winery currently grows Cabernet Sauvignon (with Sangiovese planned for the next vineyard). It specializes in ultra-premium red and sparkling wine made from 100% Texas grapes.
The winery offers tastings, private party rentals, and even has an on-site brewery and taproom for beer drinkers. But at least for now, the big draw at Charleston Taylor may be its unique slate of edutainment activities.
Visitors can take part in a custom wine-blending class, join a pasta-making workshop (with bottomless wine), enjoy a barrel tasting with the owner/winemaker, and taste wine aged in a (haunted?) hand-dug well from the 1800s. Charleston Taylor’s wine experiences are reserved in advance and start at $30 per person.
Story #5: New Texas AVAs on the way?
The American Viticultural Area (AVA) is how drinkers of American wine know where our grapes came from–our country’s very own appellation system. AVAs help winemakers differentiate and promote their wines to consumers. And in Texas, they also help counter the stereotype that Texas only grows junky bulk juice.
Texas currently has eight established AVAs, with at least six proposed new AVAs in progress. Being located within the boundaries of an AVA offers significant marketing advantages to a winery.
But registering a new AVA requires extensive terrain research and federal approval. The application process can take years. Several acclaimed Texas vineyard areas are still waiting, and no new AVAs have been granted to the state since Texoma AVA was approved in 2005. (We were hoping for news on the proposed AVAs in late 2025. It didn’t happen…but there’s always 2026.)
Which new AVA will grace Texas wine labels first? Llano Uplift is next in the queue for approval, having achieved “perfected” status for its petition in October of 2022. Close behind it is Hickory Sands, perfected in February 2023. (These two adjacent districts are wholly contained within the large Texas Hill Country AVA). And keep an eye on the proposed Dell Valley AVA (perfected in August 2024), an arid, high-altitude site about 75 miles east of El Paso.
Further reading:
My San Antonio: Texas’ largest winery files plan for new $3M estate in Texas Hill Country
Texas Wine Lover: 2026 Houston Rodeo Uncorked! International Wine Competition Results – Texas Wineries
CultureMap Austin: Tours bubble up at new sparkling wine facility in the Hill Country
Texas Wine Growers: Texas Wine Regions (AVAs)
See previous Texas Wine News stories here.
Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this article. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.
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