Around 5:30 in the afternoon of June 21, a storm swept through the small town of Stonewall in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin. Straight-line 80 mph winds blew out of the northwest and flattened eight acres of Adega Vinho winery’s 14-acre vineyard, snapping the steel posts supporting the vines and bending the vine trunks at a 90-degree angle just above the ground.
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When co-owners Andrew Bilger and his brother, Mike, the vineyard manager and winemaker, surveyed the damage, they realized the ripening grape clusters were largely intact, cushioned by heavy netting installed a few weeks earlier to protect them from birds and hail.
The cavalry arrived the next day. Neighboring wineries sent vineyard workers to help. Club members showed up to volunteer. It took two days to bend the vines upright and install new trellising.
“We had two miracles,” Andy Bilger said later. The spring had been cool and unusually rainy up until early June, rejuvenating the wines after a drought in 2022. “The vines were refreshed and supple so they didn’t snap in the wind. The second miracle was the community really came together and helped.”
Three months later, those grapes — mostly sangiovese and several Portuguese varieties — were harvested in good shape. Andy Bilger realizes any damage to his vines may not show until next year, but he’s optimistic because they were able to bring this year’s crop to the finish line.
That storm hit Stonewall in the early days of a heat dome over Texas that sent temperatures into the triple digits for more than 40 days in the Texas Hill Country, an American Viticultural Area that takes in Austin, San Antonio and Fredericksburg. Similar conditions prevailed in the Texas High Plains AVA, the panhandle farm region around Lubbock, where about 80 percent of the state’s grapes are grown. Several vineyards in both areas also suffered hail damage, a yearly danger. Excessive heat also hit the Texas Davis Mountains AVA, with elevations as high as 8,300 feet, and the Mesilla Valley AVA, a remote mountainous area north and west of El Paso that produces highly prized grapes.
I spent a week in Texas Hill Country in early October, just as the heat was waning. In visits to 11 wineries — there are more than 50 in the Hill Country AVA — I got a sense of a young, confident wine region eager to tell the rest of the world its story. Invariably the story began with this wacky vintage of 2023 and included harbingers such as the “Halloween Massacre” freeze in 2019 that severely limited the next year’s crop and Texas’ own “Snowpocalypse” of February 2021, when a statewide deep freeze shattered the electricity grid and drove Ted Cruz to Cancún.
The Hill Country is the tourism center for Texas wine, given its proximity to Austin and San Antonio. Wineries here often foster a sense of community, enlisting club members to help at events. My San Antonio friends, Miriam and Doug Juckett, discovered this community three years ago as refugees from covid lockdown fatigue and introduced me to several wineries where they are now regulars. I also visited four older wineries that have organized as Texas Fine Wine to raise the Lone Star State’s wine profile nationally.
My introduction came at Siboney Cellars, where Miguel and Barbara Lecuona hosted a rollicking Sunday afternoon party celebrating new wine releases. Events there often have a Cuban theme, with Panama hats, cigars and music to celebrate Miguel’s heritage. (Siboney — pronounced see-bo-NAY — is named for a popular Cuban love ballad written a century ago by Ernesto Lecuona, Miguel’s great-uncle.)
Befitting a young wine region, there’s innovation and experimentation. At Bending Branch winery in Comfort, Dr. Bob Young employs modern technology such as flash détente and cryo-extraction to squeeze as much essence from his tannat grapes as possible. More modestly, Lydia and Rob Nida at Pebble Rock Cellars follow a minimalist path to make more natural-style wines.
When I visited, the Hill Country had finished its harvest, but several tons of tempranillo and mourvedre, two of the Spanish and Mediterranean varieties Texas emphasizes, were still hanging in the High Plains, their ripening slowed after the vines shut down from the heat. The winemakers I met showed the weariness of making several 12-hour round-trip commutes to check on the vineyards.
“The High Plains is a mecca of grape growing, with 3,000-foot elevation and cool nights,” explains Dave Reilly, winemaker at Duchman Family Winery in Driftwood. “The Hill Country has tourism. You can grow great grapes here, but the land is expensive.”
Is all this wacky weather a sign of climate change? It may be too early to tell, since the Texas wine industry is relatively young and lacks historical data.
“It’s just Texas,” says Ron Yates, owner and winemaker at Spicewood Vineyards in Spicewood and his eponymous winery near Johnson City. “Hot, cold, we deal with it every year.”
“The one thing you can’t control is what Mother Nature will give you,” says Ben Calais, a French-born computer engineer turned winemaker and co-owner with his wife, Victoria, of French Connection Wines and Calais Wines. “What is the natural noise of Texas and what is climate change?”
Here are some of my favorite wines I tasted in Texas Hill Country, listed alphabetically by winery. In general, expect lush, full-bodied whites from Rhône varieties such as viognier and roussanne, with some good sauvignon blanc and chenin blanc as well. Reds tend to be bold and mouth-filling. They give a sense of warmth from the climate, without being hot in terms of alcohol. Most of these are sold directly from the wineries.
- Adega Vinho Viognier Reserve 2021: Lush and floral, with great balance. The 2022 recently became the first Texas white wine to take top prize at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo International Wine Competition. (Adega Vinho)
- Bending Branch Tannat 2019 Tallent Vineyards: Savory and harmonious, with well-integrated black fruit flavors and oak structure. (Bending Branch Winery)
- Calais Winery 2021 Cuvée du Noyer Semillon 2021: From west of El Paso. Classic fig and praline flavors, with rich texture. (Calais Winery)
- Duchman Family Winery Aglianico 2017 Oswald Vineyard: Elegant dried-fruit flavors, with baking spices, black tea and olives over a long finish. (Duchman Family Winery)
- French Connection Wines La Connection Rosé 2021: Mourvedre in the classic Bandol style, savory and age-worthy. (French Connection Wines)
- Inwood Estates Magnus 2017: Extreme focus on viticulture and low yields (0.3 tons per acre) produces this inky, deep and velvety blend of tempranillo and cabernet sauvignon in the style of Ribera del Duero. If Vega Sicilia were in Texas … (Inwood Estates)
- Pebble Rock Cellars Sagrantino 2019: Light and soaring, spreading spice like pixie dust. (Pebble Rock Cellars)
- Pedernales Cellars Tempranillo 2020 Lahey Vineyard: Classic tempranillo flavors of blueberry jam, tobacco leaf, as well as a plush texture. (Pedernales Cellars)
- Siboney Cellars Merlot “Storm Breaker” 2019: So named because a lightning storm struck suddenly while the grapes were being harvested. Classic merlot, polished with energy and tension. (Siboney Cellars)
- Spicewood Vineyards Tandem Red Blend 2019: A Rhône-style blend of carignan and mourvedre. Ripe and juicy, with lip-smacking peppery spice. (Spicewood Vineyards)
The previous version of this story misspelled the first name of Rob Nida. This version has been corrected.