June 3, 2026 • 43 mins
Looking for a Texas getaway that delivers top dining, local wines, chic shopping, cultural and historic charm? Consider Fredericksburg, an authentic Texas-German community established in 1846. It's a year-round destination famous for Spring wildflowers, Summer peaches, Autumn Oktoberfest and December holiday lights. Fredericksburg is located in Texas Hill Country, a top wine AVA. Many wineries offer tours and tastings. Discover places to stay, dine and explore in town and around the area.
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Fearless Fabulous You is broadcast live Wednesdays at 12 Noon ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Fearless Fabulous You Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and we're going to take you on a
fearless Fabulous travel adventure today because that's my passion. Somebody
once asked me. I was with some friends in the
wine business and we were all talking about their passion
and they were like, my passion is wine, journalist said,
And then they said, yeah, my passion is wine. And
(01:02):
then asked me, they said, is your passion wine? My
passion is travel, which includes wine and eating and exploring.
But the name of my company, which is the Connected Table.
You can follow it the Connected Table or Melanie Fabulous.
My company is called the Connected Table and its tagline
is eat, Drink, explore, and inspire, and that's what I
(01:26):
also like to do here on Fearless Fabulous Shoe, which
is about living life on your terms and stepping outside
of your comfort zone to do things to make you
feel good about yourself and about being in the world today.
We could all use that. So we're going to take
you to a beautiful place that I recently visited with
my husband David in the heart of Texas. Believe it
(01:48):
or not, It's a place that's been on my US
travel bucket list for a while, but I've never been,
so I jumped at the chance to go on a
press trip and I'm going to share it with you
because I think it's awesome. It's Fredericksburg Tech. So the
picture behind me is one of the places that we visit.
It called wild Seed Farms. It's one of the largest
or the largest wildflower farm in the United States. It's
(02:12):
also a winery and a beautiful compound where you can
taste wines and buy flowers and even by flowers that
are going to grow well where you live. So like
I live in New Orleans, I can pick a packet
that's in the South area Southeast area of wildflower seeds
to grow. It's totally cool. So we're going to take
you on a quick trip to Fredericksburg and talk about
(02:34):
why you may want to put it on your list.
Here's a couple of things. It's a Texas getaway, so
you're in big state of Texas that delivers top dining,
wine tastings, chic shopping, cultural and historic charm, and many
other delights, including some natural beauty like you see behind me,
(02:54):
and hiking. It's kind of like the perfect package. Texas
is a big stone. This is a very easy town
to get to. Fredericksburg. It's about a ninety minute drive
from San Antonio. That's the airport you want to go to.
You do want to run a car. Now, why Fredericksburg, Well,
it's an authentic Texas German community. So it's a really
(03:16):
interesting town because it was settled by Germans who got
a special land grant to escape hardship in Europe and
immigrate over to the United States. Actually, great history about
this settlement, which you can learn at the visit Fredericksburg,
Texas Welcome Center, which I highly recommend. In town, many
(03:37):
of the people I met are like fourth and fifth
generation Texas German Americans, so they're very proud of their heritage.
And you'll see throughout the town German touches here and
there and whatnot. It's really a lovely place. It was
established in eighteen forty six, as I said, initially as
(03:57):
a settlement for Germans who were escaping poverty and hardship
in Europe. It grew and it grew, and now it
is a year round destination that I think is really
great for solo travelers, couples, gallpal getaways. And it's also
a very popular wedding destination and there are a lot
of hotels and event facilities that cater to weddings and
(04:18):
other types of groups. We visited in May, but it
is a year round destination. For example, in the spring
around April, you'll see you think those are pretty well
flowers Cohen. The spring, you're going to see Texas's famous
blue bonnets, which are incredible. It's one of my dreams
this is see Texas and Hill Country during bluebonnet season.
(04:39):
You're going to see fields of wildflowers in the spring.
In the summer, you can sink your teeth into some
really juicy Texas peaches. We were just there right before
the harvest, so I didn't get to taste a fresh
teeth at Texas Peach Sadly it's June now so you can.
But I did have some pretty awesome peach jam and salsa,
and peach but and peach ice cream and even some
(05:01):
peach wine, wild berries, wonderful vegetables. It really is a
wonderful agricultural center. In the fall, it's time for Octoberfest again.
Fredericksburg embraces is German roots, and I hear it's one
of the best octoberfests in the country. And the winter,
(05:21):
I hear has an amazing Christmas holiday season that lights
up and everyone says it's a great place to go.
In fact that I've actually put it on my New
Year's bucket list to celebrate my birthday one year. And
of course Fredericksburg is located in hill country, so you've
got this beautiful visas with hills as well as the plains,
and it's the heart of wine country. Texas is a
(05:43):
very large wine producing state. I think it's right number
four now after California, five, California, Oregon, New York, and
it's either Texas or Washington. But Hill Country actually is
ava American viticultural agricultural area and it is the largest
(06:04):
or one of the largest in the United States. So
you also get to taste of pretty awesome Texas wines.
There's distilleries, there's breweries, a lot of good music. Really
an awesome place to visit, and it's walkable. So the
walkable main street is just filled with galleries and shops,
just overload of cuteness, lots of eateries, lots of wine
tasting rooms. And then further out you can go visit
(06:27):
beautiful the Lyndon Johnson State Park, which is his birthplace.
You see his old schoolhouse, and some other incredible parks
from areas for walking and hiking. So we talked about
how to get to Fredericksburg. Okay, it's about ninety minutes
north of San Antonio. You will want to rent a
car because you will want to explore. There are tours
(06:49):
that can take you around to the wineries, so you
don't have to drink and drive, and I do not
encourage anyone tasting wine and driving, so take advantage of
the wine tours. If you go to the visit Fredericksburg
tourists off in the heart of town. You can find
tons of brochures on exploring the wineries and distilleries. Excuse me,
so let's talk about where to stay, and then I'm
(07:14):
going to show you a little video. I think we
have a video, and last my engineer one. So Fredericksburg
has so many accommodations, from small ends to luxury retreats
to some of the big name change. You've heard of
something for every budget. If you want to stay in town,
which I think is really convenient, I highly recommend the
(07:34):
Albert Hotel. It's in the center of town. It's a
beautiful hotel, great bar, nice restaurant called the well House
where we ate. David had one of the most gorgeous
Porterhouse steaks. Steaks. I don't need meat, but it was
a gorgeous steak and I had a wonderful piece of fish.
It's solid, You're gonna get generous portions. It's Texas. They
don't do anything small here. And bonus, the Albert has
(07:56):
a swimming pool, and if you're there in the Texas seat,
you're going to want that swimming boat. It's gorgeous. Step
right outside and there's a cute coffee bar next door,
a wonderful bar with live music. We stopped in, and
then you're right there in the shopping center area, which
is just cute art galleries and clothing shops, cap course,
lots of places selling cowboy boots and leather. You know,
(08:19):
bring an empty credit card ready to put stuff on it.
It was hard for me because I'd like to spend.
Another option, though, if you want something a little more pampering,
is to stay at a spa retreat, which is Hill
Country Herb Garden. It's also close to town, a little bit,
like a fifteen minute walk, maybe ten. What I like
about this place is it's in the most beautiful landscaped
(08:42):
gardens imaginable. It is a popular wedding destination spot, and
it is lush landscape. It's home to one hundred and
fifty four unique botanical species of what's sixty or native Texas.
And there's an herb garden that supplies the on site
restaurant by the same name, Hill Country Herb Garden. It's
a terrific restaurant. I had a great green drink and
(09:04):
just a one name was Simple Salad. It was a
awesome salad with fresh tuna sere tuna on top. Really great.
We were there for lunch. We toured the gardens. There's
a luxury spa facility if you want to be pampered
and get a massage, and a cute, adorable gift shop
on site called Marigolds to buy gifts to take home
a lot of local, locally made items. Again, I tried
(09:27):
hard not to spend money. It was tempting. There was
so much I wanted to buy, but I had a
carry on back and the rule was we're only bringing
home a carry on back. So it's cute about the
hill country our garden. Are they combinations or actually fourteen
individual guest houses? They're so cute. They're like tiny houses
(09:48):
on the property. I'll be sharing a link on the
Connected table dot com blog and also my Melanie Fabulous
blog to show you the adorableness of these guest houses.
But it's like a city retreat with a spot in Fredericksburg.
So those are great. There's also a luxury option we
didn't see, but the Waldorf Astoria is doing a lot
(10:10):
now with these really luxury accommodations. And as I said,
there's also other like we saw a Hampton Inn. We
saw a number of other places and several signs for
Little B and B's. We actually didn't stay in town.
We stayed about four miles out in what is considered
a dark sky area, which is kind of cool if
(10:30):
you don't know what a dark sky is. It's where
you can actually go out in the middle night and
all you see your stars. There's no lights to interfere.
It's really hard to do here in New Orleans. I've tried,
hadn't been able to do it, but boy, we could
do it. We stayed which is the Odonata Escape. Here's
my notes here. The Odanata Escape is a relaxing retreat
about four mile drive outside of town. Was cool about
(10:51):
this place The couple that owns it, the Gilmore's. They
took shipping containers, basic shipping containers and turned them in
the sustainable accommodations. We had a little sweet It had
a sitting area with a day bed, a big comfortable
king sized bed, a sizeable bathroom, and a kitchen, ap
and a little porch. Each one is individually decorated and
(11:13):
has a room theme. I particularly like the one called lavender. Gee.
I wonder why if it's all purple, but there was
one called Serendipity. Ours was actually called Rosa and it
had a pink theme. Really cute place and they offer
like a beautiful area to make We were actually giving
a kit to make homemade samours over the fire pit.
(11:33):
There's nothing out there but you nature, some big jack
rabbits and the stars. You really look on a field.
So a great place if you want a romantic getaway
or a family getaway that's not in town but can
have peace and quiet. The other place we didn't stay,
but some of the people on our trip did was
called the Honey Tree the Treehouse Getaways. If you're really
(11:53):
into interesting accommodations out of the norm and out of
the way, you might like these hillside cabins that are
rooted in nature. They all offer like the contemporary amenities
you need, like you know, a great bathroom, Wi Fi
and a kitchenette. But they're just different. They're different in
terms of their style and they're very close to nature,
(12:14):
so you can stay in town or you know, outside
of nature. There's many more. And again, as I said,
the visit Fredericksburg website has a lot, so one one's
mentioned or one do we have that video here. I'm
just going to give you a quick look. It's really short.
(12:34):
I hope this is like flat, lots of grapes, beautiful vineyards,
lots of wine to drink. We're going to talk about that,
and beautiful settings. This is an area you can go hiking,
and a little further out it's really really beautiful. This
is a place of natural beauty. So if you really
(12:55):
don't want to be around skyscrapers, you won't see any.
They have laws about how high buildings can be. So
I loved Fredericksburg. I hope you will. Okay, it's a
quick taste, thank you one. So where to dine, because
you know I'm all the food. I'm all about hiking too.
We didn't get to do much hiking. We only had
three days. I'd like to go back and do some
hiking and explore that London Bank Johnson Park because it
(13:16):
looked gorgeous. But we did do some mighty fun eating
and drinking, so I'm going to fill you in. Our
first stop was breakfast in fresh brewed coffee at Dots
Bakery and beer garden. The beer garden wasn't working yet
because this is a very new place that opened to May.
I think we were like one of the top one
hundred customers, maybe the top ten customers. But it's owned
by one. I love this woman's name, Francis Money. I
(13:39):
actually said, really, I said, I'd like to have a
last name name Money. But mind Young that's okay too.
But here's this Money. Francis worked as a really successful bak.
She's from Texas. She actually went to LSU and she
had successes in working in a bakery in London for
several years while returning home. Our husband's also from Texas,
Carl and his business partner. He's a lawyer by profession,
(14:02):
but he's also big in building out Dots Bakery and
Beer Garden, which has a huge gorgeous garden in the
back where they're building a distillery and serving craft beers.
And they also own Pontautuck Pontatoc Ponta Talc, which is
like a choktaw Indian name where the Chalktaws lived in
this area. It's a winery near Fredericksburg. Really dynamic couple
(14:25):
and I wish them all the best. The place literally
had just opened and is in the center of town.
Another first stop our first evening stop with six Twists. Now,
this is a very cool sparkling wine bubbly bar that
serves sparkling wines around the world and Grower Champagne, which
means it's champagne made by the same that grows the
grapes and makes the champagne. So grower champagnes are kind
(14:46):
of cultish in the wine world and they're really special.
So the owners are Melissa and Bobby Humphreys. They left
the big city world of oil and gas and decided
to settle in Fredericksburg like many people do, because they
love it so much and they want a slower pace
of life and a better quality of life away from
the skyscrapers of the big city and of course Texas's
(15:08):
famous highways. I think they were from Houston, and I
know what those highways are like in Houston. These are
such a one. They're such a wonderful couple, the Humphreys.
They welcomed us. They have a lot of different ways
to enjoy six Twists, which is the name. Six Twists,
by the way, is the number of twists it takes
to open a bottle of champagne. The news take the
(15:28):
Musa let off in uncorked champagne. We did their classic presentation,
which I highly recommend, was a tasting of three sparkling wines.
One was a very well made prosecco, another was a
Corporot cava, which is a high end, very special cava,
and the third was a grower champagne. It was actually
(15:49):
Melissa's favorite, Paul Dthune Goove Root. It's a grand crew
from Amboney and they pared it with three different types
of caviar they get from the California Caviar Company. It
was terrific, and we had some potato chips, of course,
because you've got to have potato chips and champagne. It's
a great pairing. They have other options as well, but
this is a wonderful place to hang out, meet people,
(16:09):
maybe for an appartivo before a dinner or before going
here some live music. It's very popular. Again. It's called
Six Twists and it's in town. We dined at the Whllhouse.
I mentioned that the restaurant at Albert highly recommended. Very
great bar, really great scene, but my all time favorite restaurant.
I remember we were only there three nights, so we
(16:32):
had lunch, lunch, dinner, dinner. You know what I mean.
So Hill am buying awesome restaurant. The surface was great,
the portions are huge, the dishes are terrific. It serves
what they call Hill Country cuisine. I asked people what
that was. It's basically food made from locally sourced agricultural products.
(16:53):
And then you've got, of course, amazing cattle and chickens
that are farmed, and you get your seafood slightly from
the Gulf coast. A few things we had were brought
on elsewhere. This place was amazing. I have to say
that charcouterie and cheese board, you know how Trenton. It
was the biggest thing I've ever seen. It could have
(17:15):
served eight people. It probably did. We were like ten people.
It was alone a meal, the charcuterie board, and so shareable, wonderful.
It's called again Hill and Vine recommend it highly. Can't
wait to go. I back and have it again. The
other place you must go. It's kind of a destination
for many reasons. It's called das Peach House. Hawks das
(17:39):
Peach House remember German, so it's a German family. I
think you're dating back to the original settlers. I think
they're into their fifth generation. Now we met with the
whole The whole family came out and welcomed this. So
it's the Fisher and Weser family because this is home
for the last fifty five years to where Fisher Viser
began making its large award winning a collection of specialty
(18:01):
food jams and jellies and sauces and condiments. If you
ever uh not, if you've not heard a Fisher Advisor, uh,
you do know now and they're you know, everything's made
in Texas. They test products there, they test products for
other companies. It's a pretty big operation. And when you
go the dos Peach else you'll see their big signs.
(18:22):
Located literally off South US Highway eighty seven, you'll see
a big sign. This is that's das Peach Hoffs like
German j a u S. You go in and it's
like Taste Central. You can taste all their products and
of course buy them all those free tastes. We got
there a little later because we were invited to a
special cooking presentation and dinner with wines that the Fisher
(18:46):
Advisor family also produced. You can do that yourself. I
mean we were there on a press trip, but you
can schedule by appointment a cooking demonstration maybe for a
small group or two people, where you can have the
chef uh teach a class cooking class and then you
of course eat the food and it was really really good,
really good, and a lot of it was using local products.
(19:06):
Of course, you will have peaches and their peach jam,
their peach halipinos salsa is awesome, just fabulous. You will
not leave empty handed when you go to Doss Peach House.
You will leave full and not empty handed. And the
best part is it's on its incredible location on a
lake surrounded by pine, a pine forest, so there's like
(19:27):
cornhole to play and Adirondack chairs to sit in, and
you can even rent an airstream trailer or a small
house to stay in, so they do have a few
on side accommodations. It's family friendly and really beautiful. Right
next door is an adult only distillery that Deep Fisher,
the sun of one of the family owners. I think
(19:50):
he's in his twenties, maybe early thirties. He decided he
wanted to strike out and do something different than just
do specialty foods, and he decided to go get his
distilling degree in Scotland and created distillery. He being that
they come from German background, he wanted to do O
to v or fruit brandies because this is orchard central
for greate fruit. He also apprenticed with an O to
(20:13):
V producer distiller in Austria, learned the craft and comes
back and he makes beautiful O Tov's great gifts, you know,
like peach plum, you know, really amazing. But he also
has a terrific London dry gin called Five Judges. It's
named after the five judges who once lived in the
on the property that it was their home that now
(20:34):
is where the home to the distillery is. It's really great,
great patio, beautiful visita of the lake and it's right
next door to Doss Peach House. You can make this
like a whole evening or afternoon if you want, just
doing Doss Peach House. And it was our last stop
on the trip and so much fun. That the family
is so nice. It was so interesting to learn, you know,
(20:56):
how they got started, and you know, we learned that
all along the way. So those are just a few places.
David and I also stopped, of course to have a beer.
We took some time when we had some downtime to
stroll through town and do some shopping. Again, we didn't
really spend any money, but we did get a great
beer one of the oldest breweries in the United States.
Because when you go to Fredericksburg, you need to have
(21:17):
a beer. It's a German heritage, right, you have to
have a great beer. There's lots of little beer halls around. Also,
some of the Texas wineries have tasting rooms in town.
Urban tasting rooms with their calls. You can taste wines
without actually leaving town. Really great and ubiquitous amounts of
coffee and ice cream, ice cream and of course margaritas
(21:40):
because we're in Texas. Of course this was for us
the people who organized it, thank you, Geiger pr They
organized for David and me to also go to some
wineries because that's what we do. We drink a lot
of wine and tell you about it. So let me
just tell you about Texas wines. Texas is, as, I said,
a very major wine producing state. Four. I'm pretty sure
(22:01):
it's either four or five of the United States, and
the Texas AVA has like seven or eight ava's area
agricultural agricultural viticultural areas and the high country where Fredericksburg
is is the largest, so you're gonna get myriad types
of wineries. I was actually surprised at how many wineries
there were and how many wine tours are offered to tourists.
(22:25):
So you don't need to drive, just get a tour,
sit back and enjoy the ride and taste some great wines.
So what are you going to be tasting? Interestingly, it's hot,
You're in the plains. You're an alluvial river valley because
the Pedernellas River is right there. So it's really actually
a great grape growing area. There are some good conditions.
Poor soil means the vines have to struggle to get
(22:47):
more water. You want only a wine, can you be
poor and struggle and it's a good thing. So a
lot of the wines tend to be made with varieties
from this Rhone Valley, surraw vedra Ussan Vina, Southern Italy
like Aglianico and Spain, lots of Temporneo and Portugal so
(23:11):
Teriga and now so you know, lots of grapes in
that area. Being a meat country, you're gonna have probably
some cattle country. You're gonna have some awesome red wines.
I think the red wines were stronger than white. But
I had some pretty good vermintinos, which is an Italian
and French grape, and a vina that I liked, and
even and I had a pretty good Svenium law. They're
doing a lot there and at one winery we had
(23:34):
some amazing sparkling. So I'm gonna tell you where we
went again. Our troop was organized, but you can have
a wine tour customized for you as well, based on
what you like, and I would highly recommend it. So
we went to okay, my absolute Go Go Go Winery.
Okay Ya, it's woman owned, like Dots Bakery, woman owned
(23:55):
support women own businesses. Myerson Vineyard is a woman owned
awesome winery and it's beautiful. The owner is Crystal Patel.
She's like straight out of like gorgeous. She's a long, tall,
beautiful Texas drink of water and so nice. She grew
up on this beautiful ranch. She's an only child like me.
(24:18):
She took us on the tour. She was in financial
technology and just said I'm done. She came back to
the ranch, did a lot of work, a lot of research,
taught herself how to make wine, she is self taught
and she makes beautiful wines. I'm not going to go
into the details of what we tasted other than the
(24:39):
fact that there was. Every single one of them was stunning.
I particularly to Rose. I just loved it. But if
I had brought back wines, they would have been mayor
Stone's wines. It's M. E. I. E. R. S. T O.
Ny Mayorstone Vineyards. They've got a really good wine club.
When we were there, one of the group of wine
club evers were celebrating her birthday. They've won several awards.
(25:01):
You'll see a big saddle. When you win Best of Texas,
you get a saddle. Every single wine was perfect. It
just really impressed me about the quality of Texas wines.
The second I would recommend is Pedernalas Cellars. It's one
of Texas's must established and respective wineries that the owners
are actually from I think Denmark or Sweden, but they
(25:23):
lived in California. They also left corporate world and moved
to Texas because they loved it, and they've been coming
to this area for a long time. The winery is stunning.
It's located on a plateau like so high up. I
remember this is hill country, so there are hills and valleys.
Then there's a river valley. You can see over the
Pedernalas River off in the distance there's a huge patio.
(25:45):
We had a great tasting experience here. Some of the
nicest tasting room people. What I learned a number of
people we met in tasting rooms it's like their second
career or their retirement career, literally, and I thought to myself,
maybe I could do that. So we had I don't
remember her name, but she was so enthusiastic about talking
about the story of ped analysis, serving the wines, and
(26:07):
it was her retirement career and she just loved it
was The hospitality was amazing. This winery has amazing red wines.
I think the red wines where their strength, with the
Timporanny as being standout Timpanny. It was a Spanish grape.
It's gone all over Spain. It really does well here
(26:29):
in Texas. So man really terrific. The next one we
stopped at was if you want to try what you
call smaller indie wineries, the Texas Wine Collective is a
great stop. It appears to be popular on the Texas
Wine Tour route because we saw a few wine vans
there with people at different areas tasting. We tasted wines
(26:51):
from three different smaller producers. Again, I can't go into
details get on my coats here, but it was really nice.
It was really pleasant. It's fun to see what smaller
wineries are doing because it doesn't have to be big.
We did pass a lot of very big wineries that
look like a lot of major money sunk into them.
Probably we'll go back and check those out, but I
(27:12):
liked who we saw and who we met with. Another winery,
Heath Family Brands. They're actually a bigger company. They have
a winery impassa Roblast. They also have the k Estate,
which is a wine club that you can join. All
these wineries have wine clubs what I'm gonna talking about,
but this was more of a wine slash club like
(27:32):
private club, kind of like what six Twists does also
with their club, but you can still go. But here
they have a wine club in a gorgeous tasting rooms
you can go taste, but they also have a really
fantastic restaurant only open to club members that overlooks this
huge patio in the vineyards. We being there on a
press trip, got to go have lunch there. It was
(27:54):
really terrific, and we're joining the club because you get
great deals on the wines. I particularly sparkling Winders. I
think it was a sparkling Shin and Blanc. It was
really terrific. Again, nice ones for Kase. It actually thought
the whites were stronger than the reds. The great thing
about Texas is you can get the full range white, rose, red,
and sparkling, and there's enough made with different types of
(28:16):
grape varieties to suit your taste. Im Palette. Another winery,
but much more I mentioned earlier is wild Seed Farm. Okay,
this place is like epic and you need to have
it on her schedule. It is the largest wildflower farm
in the United States. It supplies many other companies. The
(28:39):
founder is just adorable. I just could have like hugged
them John. I think his lesson was Thomas. We took
the tour, the wildflowers weren't as blush and plush. They
were like this. Actually that's one of my photos behind me.
But they're beautiful. It's a great place to take kids.
There's a gift shop. You could just stay there forever,
but they also a great tasting room where you can
(29:01):
tie their wines because they have as huge as you
see in the back of the photo. There's vineyards because
they're also a grower. A grower means they grow grapes
and they supply them to other wineries like Meerstone actually
buys grapes from Wild Sea. But they're also a producer.
Remember earlier in the show, I talked about how six
Twists does a lot with grower Champagnes well grower, and
(29:24):
a grower is a grower. Producer is a grower producer.
So Wild Seed makes terrific wines. We tasted, we didn't
have a lot of time to taste them all. The
one that I wanted to taste we didn't get to
was Aglianico, which one like an award in Texas, but
the Tempernio was terrific. I think we tasted a blend
with Kaepernie Frank and Capsov and Tempernao terrific. They make
(29:46):
a couple of blends. They're really you like those firm
red wines with great tan in. You're going to love
these wines. So they also make wines as is dust
Peach House kind of interesting, right, But you didn't think
there was so much mind there. Another thing we did
probably could have been a better timing, was we visited
some peach farms. Texas is a big producer of peaches
(30:10):
and other agriculture products, including wonderful fresh ferries. But it
was supposedly peach season. However, we know Mother Nature likes
to do things on her time, so the peach season
was running a little late. However, if you go in
the summer, do stop, buy and support these farmers. They
have beautiful tasting rooms and hospitality options for you. Three
(30:31):
we visit it and I'll mention Jenski Orchards big orchard.
They also have corn and mazes, twenty different varieties of peaches,
twenty different varieties of peaches. Okay, how many of you
have I've had maybe three up in Georgia, so most
of seven generations of Jenski's have been working this farm.
They also have a little tiny B and b maybe
(30:53):
you could sleep one or two people on property. There's
a barbecue pits place next door. I used to take
kids and roam around, and there's a great gift shoper
and taste and purchase more peach jam, saltas, jellies and
fresh fruits and vegetables because it's a farm. The next one,
who I love this place Vogel Orchards, another family owned
(31:15):
farms since nineteen fifty three. They're trying to do something
about climate change because you know, the peach season was
going to be a smaller peach harvest. Who's going to
be smaller due to hail, which is like the hail
as the hell for people in agriculture. It really downages
crops to be a smaller but good peach season, but smaller.
But the owners, the Vogel family is also doing research
(31:40):
to grow different types of berries. They're working with Texas
A and M to see what they could do to
help provide alternative growing options. If one crop is not
doing great, they can do another at that Right now,
it's June. The peaches are awesome. We did get a
great peach cobbler when we went to Vogel and it
(32:01):
was I think his grandmother's recipe we had with peach
ice cream. So I was feeling pretty peachy, which is
while I'm wearing his shirt. Another cool place I think
I tried every I think I tried every sample in
the store is Burke's Corner. Three generations strong, great shop
to buy not only jams, jellies, kind of interesting peach wine.
(32:22):
It was pretty nice, kind of like a mescato, which
is about right. Mescato has peach qualities to it and
other locally made products from pastas to jerky. Kind of
a cool place, honey, and a lot of people were
lining up for the fresh peach ice cream. I should
have would have could have got that, because by the
time I'd finished, I had said, man, I've had everything.
(32:43):
The peach ice cream. Well, I did have other vogel
orchards with my cobbler, but it was pretty awesome. And frankly,
I didn't know that peaches were such a big deal
in Texas because I grew up in Georgia and for me,
it was all about Georgia peaches. So there you go
a couple of other things. So what do you do
in town? I've already talked about shopping, drinking, eating, more shopping,
(33:06):
but you've got to embrace the history because this is
so cool. When I go traveling, and I urge everybody
to do this. When you land somewhere you've never been
the first thing I like to do is I like
to go visit the tourist office, the local tourist office
and actually talk to the people there and ask them
what are things I should not miss, what are things
(33:27):
that are really great for my personal interests. We did
that at the Visit Fredericksburg Tourism Office, which has a
really great short film. I also like to learn about
the history and providence of town, particularly when I hear
that has a really interesting heritage, like Fredericksburg, which is
the German heritage. There is a film, it's very short,
(33:49):
it's actually incredibly informative at the Visit Fredericksburg Tourism Office.
It tells you the history and struggle that these German
immigrants face. I mean, basically, some nobility, a group of nobility,
noblemen in Germany negotiated a land grant in this part
of south central Texas with the Choktaw Indians. It was
(34:11):
one of the first ever doing business with the Chalktaws
and the Germans. They bought it, but they didn't buy
the greatest location. They didn't know that at the time
because it was Texas and they didn't know and there
was no Google. Remember it was back on another century.
The immigrants all came over. Many people said we want
(34:31):
to leave to find better land. But they didn't realize
that when the boat landed they were going to be
in the Gulf coast, because Texas is big, and the
boat landed on the Golf coast. So what were they
met with? Heat, humidity, mosquitoes and other bugs. What the
nobility didn't figure out. While they could figure out how
to negotiate a deal with the chalk Taws, but they
(34:52):
hadn't figured out is how to get the immigrants from
the muggy, hot Gulf coasts. And remember Germans were not
used to muggy and hot. Their f used to German
weather and alpay weather and cooler weather. How to get
these immogrants who were struggling and suffering in the heat
up through Texas to the land that had been contracted.
(35:12):
So it took another man, a priest, who came over
and he actually ended up finding a settlement that would work,
and he helped the Germans navigate by foot and maybe
by horse to get up there in Texas as big.
I can only imagine how hard it was. Of great
respect for the people who settled there and the ancestors
(35:36):
of the many people we meet. But this is all
told in the film. It was really interesting. Another thing
you should do is I like to visit the local
history museum that tells the heritage of a place. The
Pioneer Museum does just that. It's a walkable outdoor museum
with structures that show how people lived back in the
(35:58):
eighteen hundreds. On a cabin. You find the home of
a wealthy person, the home of a simple person. You
find a general store, a church, and you'll find something
that's an architectural specific item, a piece of ark excuse me,
a piece of archchitecture unique to Fredericksburg, which is called
a Sunday house. A Sunday house is a small house.
(36:23):
Think about like the tiny house or cabin that was
a two story structure that farmers would use when they
came in to Fredericksburg for the weekend to buy supplies
and attend church services. Thus the term Sunday house. What's
unique about Sunday houses is there two stories and the
stories are connected by an outdoor staircase. Right The outdoor
(36:48):
staircase takes you from the working quarters or the greeting
court meeting quarters, to the sleeping quarters upstairs, and then
there's a lean to kitchen in the back. There's several
preserved Sunday houses and around Fredericksburg, and at the Pioneer
Museum you'll see one called the Weber Sunday House. But
that's just one of those unique things about Fredericksburg Pioneer Museum.
(37:11):
Something I didn't know. I do know now. When I
landed in San Antonio, you'll see it's the home of
for you know, the military, a military city, and you
feel that pride for the military throughout Texas, but especially
when you land in San Antonio and also when you
are in Fredericksburg. It's very important. The National Museum of
(37:34):
the Pacific War is a very large museum and Smithsonian affiliate,
spread over three galleries, six acres fifty five thousand square
feet of exhibit space that tells the story of World
War Two. Now we have the World War Two Museum
here in New Orleans. I think it's bigger, the biggest
(37:56):
in the country, but I would say the National Museum
of the Pacific War is also up there in the
ranking of size matters. We didn't get to go to
it because we were busy tasting wine. We did visit
the Pioneer Museum and the visitors Center. Part of the
group of the non wine drinkers got to go to
the National Museum of the Pacific War. But if you
(38:17):
were a history buff, or you're going with family who
are history buffs, or kids who you want to teach,
this is a great museum. I did learn that, you know,
the connection is deeper than just the museum. Fredericksburg was
the birthplace of William Nimitz, who served as the commander
in chief Fleet Admiral in the US Navy over several
(38:41):
forces in World War Two. He is a local hero.
You will see tributes to him throughout downtown and a statue,
and there's an organization called the Nimitz Foundation dot Org.
I think there's also a submarine called Nivet's Mouth. So
big hero. A lot of pride in you know, serving
the United States, You're going to see a lot of
(39:02):
civic pride. You'll see a lot of positive national pride.
And it's a place that is welcoming to all and
I think that's nice. Other things that I would recommend
doing is go hear some live music and really do
some line dancing because you're in Texas. I'm taking line
dancing lessons now. I believe it or not, and I
think it's awesome down the road. In twenty twenty seven,
(39:25):
we did a hard Haad tour fine of a huge
shopping complex called The Muse and there will be a
Kimpton Hotel and a lot of boutique retail shops all Texas.
Nothing like Big Lot or anything like that. Nothing, you know,
Big Brand is going to be all Texas. That's going
to open twenty twenty seven and will be really studying.
(39:49):
A great place to stay, but also big for Again,
this is a big wedding destination. So if you're planning
a wedding or an anniversary or a reunion, this is
a great spot. There's something to do, we've ever been
to have a good time, and there's plenty of facilities
for it. That's twenty twenty seven. I hope to be
back in twenty twenty seven too. I'd like there was
a list of things I'd like to have done if
I had more time, like go to some of the
(40:12):
natural resources outside of town that I stually saw, you
know I saw. I think it was a rhino rescue.
Am I losing my mind? There was something there that
looked really interesting with wild animals rescue and hiking because
I like to hike, and I think it's probably a
great biking area as well. But I'll go back. It
was pretty easy to get there. I don't know where
(40:33):
it's like to get there from Dallas, but we did
San Antonio, which, by the way, is another town I
want to visit. Oh, last, but not least more information.
I think I covered everything in here, but we did,
and I think we did a lot for three days.
I do want to remind you that we did a
lot for three days, but I don't want you to
pack it in. I'm a big believer when I'm not
(40:55):
on press trips that you take it easy and take
it slow. You know. The Italian love la la docho vita.
They like to save your life and take it slow.
They'll sit and linger over coffee. They'll sit and linger
over an appartivo. If you travel, or when you travel
and if you visit Fredericksburg, which I hope you do,
(41:15):
or anywhere you go, take time to sit in a cafe,
have your morning coffee and some local amazing bread or pastry.
Haven't the appartivo, which is that special hour between four
and seven where you have the sprints or white, you know,
sprits or glass of wine or champagne or at six Twists,
(41:37):
maybe you can have some champagne and caviar. But linger
linger and savor the moment. Don't rush. I see people
planning travel itineries and they share them online and it's
like they don't have time to breath. You don't need
to rush it. And to that point, I want to
thank the folks who invited us and organized our trips.
(41:59):
Physic Frederick Fidd's visit Fredericksburg, TX dot com. Visit Fredericksburg,
Texas and get your pr It was a great trip.
It was fun. I got a lot out of it,
and I found a place here in Louisiana that's kind
of a great hop, skip and a jump away. I
want to visit. I'll keep traveling, I'll keep sharing with
you because I want you to explore the world. You
(42:21):
only have one life. You can either hang out and
spend it a home and put everything on your wish list,
or you can take action and put it on your
to do list, or you can say getting up and
getting out on the road list. I'm that last person
you know, you know you can't die with regret. You
(42:41):
go to die happy and you don't know when that
day will be. So live every moment in the fullest
because as I wrap up the show, I like to say,
you only have one life and you deserve to live
it on your terms. Make confident choices that you believe in.
Take your time to do that. Listen to people, talk
to people, listen to experts that follow your gut in
(43:01):
your heart, and always choose fearless and fabulous when you
choose to live life in your terms. Thank you. I'm
Melanie Young, Follow me, I'm Melanie Fabulous. Check out my
substack Melanie Fabulous, and check out my other show that
connected The Pable Live with David Ransom and until next time,
(43:22):
stay fearless and fabulous. Thank you,
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Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and we're going to take you on a
fearless Fabulous travel adventure today because that's my passion. Somebody
once asked me. I was with some friends in the
wine business and we were all talking about their passion
and they were like, my passion is wine, journalist said,
And then they said, yeah, my passion is wine. And
(01:02):
then asked me, they said, is your passion wine? My
passion is travel, which includes wine and eating and exploring.
But the name of my company, which is the Connected Table.
You can follow it the Connected Table or Melanie Fabulous.
My company is called the Connected Table and its tagline
is eat, Drink, explore, and inspire, and that's what I
(01:26):
also like to do here on Fearless Fabulous Shoe, which
is about living life on your terms and stepping outside
of your comfort zone to do things to make you
feel good about yourself and about being in the world today.
We could all use that. So we're going to take
you to a beautiful place that I recently visited with
my husband David in the heart of Texas. Believe it
(01:48):
or not, It's a place that's been on my US
travel bucket list for a while, but I've never been,
so I jumped at the chance to go on a
press trip and I'm going to share it with you
because I think it's awesome. It's Fredericksburg Tech. So the
picture behind me is one of the places that we visit.
It called wild Seed Farms. It's one of the largest
or the largest wildflower farm in the United States. It's
(02:12):
also a winery and a beautiful compound where you can
taste wines and buy flowers and even by flowers that
are going to grow well where you live. So like
I live in New Orleans, I can pick a packet
that's in the South area Southeast area of wildflower seeds
to grow. It's totally cool. So we're going to take
you on a quick trip to Fredericksburg and talk about
(02:34):
why you may want to put it on your list.
Here's a couple of things. It's a Texas getaway, so
you're in big state of Texas that delivers top dining,
wine tastings, chic shopping, cultural and historic charm, and many
other delights, including some natural beauty like you see behind me,
(02:54):
and hiking. It's kind of like the perfect package. Texas
is a big stone. This is a very easy town
to get to. Fredericksburg. It's about a ninety minute drive
from San Antonio. That's the airport you want to go to.
You do want to run a car. Now, why Fredericksburg, Well,
it's an authentic Texas German community. So it's a really
(03:16):
interesting town because it was settled by Germans who got
a special land grant to escape hardship in Europe and
immigrate over to the United States. Actually, great history about
this settlement, which you can learn at the visit Fredericksburg,
Texas Welcome Center, which I highly recommend. In town, many
(03:37):
of the people I met are like fourth and fifth
generation Texas German Americans, so they're very proud of their heritage.
And you'll see throughout the town German touches here and
there and whatnot. It's really a lovely place. It was
established in eighteen forty six, as I said, initially as
(03:57):
a settlement for Germans who were escaping poverty and hardship
in Europe. It grew and it grew, and now it
is a year round destination that I think is really
great for solo travelers, couples, gallpal getaways. And it's also
a very popular wedding destination and there are a lot
of hotels and event facilities that cater to weddings and
(04:18):
other types of groups. We visited in May, but it
is a year round destination. For example, in the spring
around April, you'll see you think those are pretty well
flowers Cohen. The spring, you're going to see Texas's famous
blue bonnets, which are incredible. It's one of my dreams
this is see Texas and Hill Country during bluebonnet season.
(04:39):
You're going to see fields of wildflowers in the spring.
In the summer, you can sink your teeth into some
really juicy Texas peaches. We were just there right before
the harvest, so I didn't get to taste a fresh
teeth at Texas Peach Sadly it's June now so you can.
But I did have some pretty awesome peach jam and salsa,
and peach but and peach ice cream and even some
(05:01):
peach wine, wild berries, wonderful vegetables. It really is a
wonderful agricultural center. In the fall, it's time for Octoberfest again.
Fredericksburg embraces is German roots, and I hear it's one
of the best octoberfests in the country. And the winter,
(05:21):
I hear has an amazing Christmas holiday season that lights
up and everyone says it's a great place to go.
In fact that I've actually put it on my New
Year's bucket list to celebrate my birthday one year. And
of course Fredericksburg is located in hill country, so you've
got this beautiful visas with hills as well as the plains,
and it's the heart of wine country. Texas is a
(05:43):
very large wine producing state. I think it's right number
four now after California, five, California, Oregon, New York, and
it's either Texas or Washington. But Hill Country actually is
ava American viticultural agricultural area and it is the largest
(06:04):
or one of the largest in the United States. So
you also get to taste of pretty awesome Texas wines.
There's distilleries, there's breweries, a lot of good music. Really
an awesome place to visit, and it's walkable. So the
walkable main street is just filled with galleries and shops,
just overload of cuteness, lots of eateries, lots of wine
tasting rooms. And then further out you can go visit
(06:27):
beautiful the Lyndon Johnson State Park, which is his birthplace.
You see his old schoolhouse, and some other incredible parks
from areas for walking and hiking. So we talked about
how to get to Fredericksburg. Okay, it's about ninety minutes
north of San Antonio. You will want to rent a
car because you will want to explore. There are tours
(06:49):
that can take you around to the wineries, so you
don't have to drink and drive, and I do not
encourage anyone tasting wine and driving, so take advantage of
the wine tours. If you go to the visit Fredericksburg
tourists off in the heart of town. You can find
tons of brochures on exploring the wineries and distilleries. Excuse me,
so let's talk about where to stay, and then I'm
(07:14):
going to show you a little video. I think we
have a video, and last my engineer one. So Fredericksburg
has so many accommodations, from small ends to luxury retreats
to some of the big name change. You've heard of
something for every budget. If you want to stay in town,
which I think is really convenient, I highly recommend the
(07:34):
Albert Hotel. It's in the center of town. It's a
beautiful hotel, great bar, nice restaurant called the well House
where we ate. David had one of the most gorgeous
Porterhouse steaks. Steaks. I don't need meat, but it was
a gorgeous steak and I had a wonderful piece of fish.
It's solid, You're gonna get generous portions. It's Texas. They
don't do anything small here. And bonus, the Albert has
(07:56):
a swimming pool, and if you're there in the Texas seat,
you're going to want that swimming boat. It's gorgeous. Step
right outside and there's a cute coffee bar next door,
a wonderful bar with live music. We stopped in, and
then you're right there in the shopping center area, which
is just cute art galleries and clothing shops, cap course,
lots of places selling cowboy boots and leather. You know,
(08:19):
bring an empty credit card ready to put stuff on it.
It was hard for me because I'd like to spend.
Another option, though, if you want something a little more pampering,
is to stay at a spa retreat, which is Hill
Country Herb Garden. It's also close to town, a little bit,
like a fifteen minute walk, maybe ten. What I like
about this place is it's in the most beautiful landscaped
(08:42):
gardens imaginable. It is a popular wedding destination spot, and
it is lush landscape. It's home to one hundred and
fifty four unique botanical species of what's sixty or native Texas.
And there's an herb garden that supplies the on site
restaurant by the same name, Hill Country Herb Garden. It's
a terrific restaurant. I had a great green drink and
(09:04):
just a one name was Simple Salad. It was a
awesome salad with fresh tuna sere tuna on top. Really great.
We were there for lunch. We toured the gardens. There's
a luxury spa facility if you want to be pampered
and get a massage, and a cute, adorable gift shop
on site called Marigolds to buy gifts to take home
a lot of local, locally made items. Again, I tried
(09:27):
hard not to spend money. It was tempting. There was
so much I wanted to buy, but I had a
carry on back and the rule was we're only bringing
home a carry on back. So it's cute about the
hill country our garden. Are they combinations or actually fourteen
individual guest houses? They're so cute. They're like tiny houses
(09:48):
on the property. I'll be sharing a link on the
Connected table dot com blog and also my Melanie Fabulous
blog to show you the adorableness of these guest houses.
But it's like a city retreat with a spot in Fredericksburg.
So those are great. There's also a luxury option we
didn't see, but the Waldorf Astoria is doing a lot
(10:10):
now with these really luxury accommodations. And as I said,
there's also other like we saw a Hampton Inn. We
saw a number of other places and several signs for
Little B and B's. We actually didn't stay in town.
We stayed about four miles out in what is considered
a dark sky area, which is kind of cool if
(10:30):
you don't know what a dark sky is. It's where
you can actually go out in the middle night and
all you see your stars. There's no lights to interfere.
It's really hard to do here in New Orleans. I've tried,
hadn't been able to do it, but boy, we could
do it. We stayed which is the Odonata Escape. Here's
my notes here. The Odanata Escape is a relaxing retreat
about four mile drive outside of town. Was cool about
(10:51):
this place The couple that owns it, the Gilmore's. They
took shipping containers, basic shipping containers and turned them in
the sustainable accommodations. We had a little sweet It had
a sitting area with a day bed, a big comfortable
king sized bed, a sizeable bathroom, and a kitchen, ap
and a little porch. Each one is individually decorated and
(11:13):
has a room theme. I particularly like the one called lavender. Gee.
I wonder why if it's all purple, but there was
one called Serendipity. Ours was actually called Rosa and it
had a pink theme. Really cute place and they offer
like a beautiful area to make We were actually giving
a kit to make homemade samours over the fire pit.
(11:33):
There's nothing out there but you nature, some big jack
rabbits and the stars. You really look on a field.
So a great place if you want a romantic getaway
or a family getaway that's not in town but can
have peace and quiet. The other place we didn't stay,
but some of the people on our trip did was
called the Honey Tree the Treehouse Getaways. If you're really
(11:53):
into interesting accommodations out of the norm and out of
the way, you might like these hillside cabins that are
rooted in nature. They all offer like the contemporary amenities
you need, like you know, a great bathroom, Wi Fi
and a kitchenette. But they're just different. They're different in
terms of their style and they're very close to nature,
(12:14):
so you can stay in town or you know, outside
of nature. There's many more. And again, as I said,
the visit Fredericksburg website has a lot, so one one's
mentioned or one do we have that video here. I'm
just going to give you a quick look. It's really short.
(12:34):
I hope this is like flat, lots of grapes, beautiful vineyards,
lots of wine to drink. We're going to talk about that,
and beautiful settings. This is an area you can go hiking,
and a little further out it's really really beautiful. This
is a place of natural beauty. So if you really
(12:55):
don't want to be around skyscrapers, you won't see any.
They have laws about how high buildings can be. So
I loved Fredericksburg. I hope you will. Okay, it's a
quick taste, thank you one. So where to dine, because
you know I'm all the food. I'm all about hiking too.
We didn't get to do much hiking. We only had
three days. I'd like to go back and do some
hiking and explore that London Bank Johnson Park because it
(13:16):
looked gorgeous. But we did do some mighty fun eating
and drinking, so I'm going to fill you in. Our
first stop was breakfast in fresh brewed coffee at Dots
Bakery and beer garden. The beer garden wasn't working yet
because this is a very new place that opened to May.
I think we were like one of the top one
hundred customers, maybe the top ten customers. But it's owned
by one. I love this woman's name, Francis Money. I
(13:39):
actually said, really, I said, I'd like to have a
last name name Money. But mind Young that's okay too.
But here's this Money. Francis worked as a really successful bak.
She's from Texas. She actually went to LSU and she
had successes in working in a bakery in London for
several years while returning home. Our husband's also from Texas,
Carl and his business partner. He's a lawyer by profession,
(14:02):
but he's also big in building out Dots Bakery and
Beer Garden, which has a huge gorgeous garden in the
back where they're building a distillery and serving craft beers.
And they also own Pontautuck Pontatoc Ponta Talc, which is
like a choktaw Indian name where the Chalktaws lived in
this area. It's a winery near Fredericksburg. Really dynamic couple
(14:25):
and I wish them all the best. The place literally
had just opened and is in the center of town.
Another first stop our first evening stop with six Twists. Now,
this is a very cool sparkling wine bubbly bar that
serves sparkling wines around the world and Grower Champagne, which
means it's champagne made by the same that grows the
grapes and makes the champagne. So grower champagnes are kind
(14:46):
of cultish in the wine world and they're really special.
So the owners are Melissa and Bobby Humphreys. They left
the big city world of oil and gas and decided
to settle in Fredericksburg like many people do, because they
love it so much and they want a slower pace
of life and a better quality of life away from
the skyscrapers of the big city and of course Texas's
(15:08):
famous highways. I think they were from Houston, and I
know what those highways are like in Houston. These are
such a one. They're such a wonderful couple, the Humphreys.
They welcomed us. They have a lot of different ways
to enjoy six Twists, which is the name. Six Twists,
by the way, is the number of twists it takes
to open a bottle of champagne. The news take the
(15:28):
Musa let off in uncorked champagne. We did their classic presentation,
which I highly recommend, was a tasting of three sparkling wines.
One was a very well made prosecco, another was a
Corporot cava, which is a high end, very special cava,
and the third was a grower champagne. It was actually
(15:49):
Melissa's favorite, Paul Dthune Goove Root. It's a grand crew
from Amboney and they pared it with three different types
of caviar they get from the California Caviar Company. It
was terrific, and we had some potato chips, of course,
because you've got to have potato chips and champagne. It's
a great pairing. They have other options as well, but
this is a wonderful place to hang out, meet people,
(16:09):
maybe for an appartivo before a dinner or before going
here some live music. It's very popular. Again. It's called
Six Twists and it's in town. We dined at the Whllhouse.
I mentioned that the restaurant at Albert highly recommended. Very
great bar, really great scene, but my all time favorite restaurant.
I remember we were only there three nights, so we
(16:32):
had lunch, lunch, dinner, dinner. You know what I mean.
So Hill am buying awesome restaurant. The surface was great,
the portions are huge, the dishes are terrific. It serves
what they call Hill Country cuisine. I asked people what
that was. It's basically food made from locally sourced agricultural products.
(16:53):
And then you've got, of course, amazing cattle and chickens
that are farmed, and you get your seafood slightly from
the Gulf coast. A few things we had were brought
on elsewhere. This place was amazing. I have to say
that charcouterie and cheese board, you know how Trenton. It
was the biggest thing I've ever seen. It could have
(17:15):
served eight people. It probably did. We were like ten people.
It was alone a meal, the charcuterie board, and so shareable, wonderful.
It's called again Hill and Vine recommend it highly. Can't
wait to go. I back and have it again. The
other place you must go. It's kind of a destination
for many reasons. It's called das Peach House. Hawks das
(17:39):
Peach House remember German, so it's a German family. I
think you're dating back to the original settlers. I think
they're into their fifth generation. Now we met with the
whole The whole family came out and welcomed this. So
it's the Fisher and Weser family because this is home
for the last fifty five years to where Fisher Viser
began making its large award winning a collection of specialty
(18:01):
food jams and jellies and sauces and condiments. If you
ever uh not, if you've not heard a Fisher Advisor, uh,
you do know now and they're you know, everything's made
in Texas. They test products there, they test products for
other companies. It's a pretty big operation. And when you
go the dos Peach else you'll see their big signs.
(18:22):
Located literally off South US Highway eighty seven, you'll see
a big sign. This is that's das Peach Hoffs like
German j a u S. You go in and it's
like Taste Central. You can taste all their products and
of course buy them all those free tastes. We got
there a little later because we were invited to a
special cooking presentation and dinner with wines that the Fisher
(18:46):
Advisor family also produced. You can do that yourself. I
mean we were there on a press trip, but you
can schedule by appointment a cooking demonstration maybe for a
small group or two people, where you can have the
chef uh teach a class cooking class and then you
of course eat the food and it was really really good,
really good, and a lot of it was using local products.
(19:06):
Of course, you will have peaches and their peach jam,
their peach halipinos salsa is awesome, just fabulous. You will
not leave empty handed when you go to Doss Peach House.
You will leave full and not empty handed. And the
best part is it's on its incredible location on a
lake surrounded by pine, a pine forest, so there's like
(19:27):
cornhole to play and Adirondack chairs to sit in, and
you can even rent an airstream trailer or a small
house to stay in, so they do have a few
on side accommodations. It's family friendly and really beautiful. Right
next door is an adult only distillery that Deep Fisher,
the sun of one of the family owners. I think
(19:50):
he's in his twenties, maybe early thirties. He decided he
wanted to strike out and do something different than just
do specialty foods, and he decided to go get his
distilling degree in Scotland and created distillery. He being that
they come from German background, he wanted to do O
to v or fruit brandies because this is orchard central
for greate fruit. He also apprenticed with an O to
(20:13):
V producer distiller in Austria, learned the craft and comes
back and he makes beautiful O Tov's great gifts, you know,
like peach plum, you know, really amazing. But he also
has a terrific London dry gin called Five Judges. It's
named after the five judges who once lived in the
on the property that it was their home that now
(20:34):
is where the home to the distillery is. It's really great,
great patio, beautiful visita of the lake and it's right
next door to Doss Peach House. You can make this
like a whole evening or afternoon if you want, just
doing Doss Peach House. And it was our last stop
on the trip and so much fun. That the family
is so nice. It was so interesting to learn, you know,
(20:56):
how they got started, and you know, we learned that
all along the way. So those are just a few places.
David and I also stopped, of course to have a beer.
We took some time when we had some downtime to
stroll through town and do some shopping. Again, we didn't
really spend any money, but we did get a great
beer one of the oldest breweries in the United States.
Because when you go to Fredericksburg, you need to have
(21:17):
a beer. It's a German heritage, right, you have to
have a great beer. There's lots of little beer halls around. Also,
some of the Texas wineries have tasting rooms in town.
Urban tasting rooms with their calls. You can taste wines
without actually leaving town. Really great and ubiquitous amounts of
coffee and ice cream, ice cream and of course margaritas
(21:40):
because we're in Texas. Of course this was for us
the people who organized it, thank you, Geiger pr They
organized for David and me to also go to some
wineries because that's what we do. We drink a lot
of wine and tell you about it. So let me
just tell you about Texas wines. Texas is, as, I said,
a very major wine producing state. Four. I'm pretty sure
(22:01):
it's either four or five of the United States, and
the Texas AVA has like seven or eight ava's area
agricultural agricultural viticultural areas and the high country where Fredericksburg
is is the largest, so you're gonna get myriad types
of wineries. I was actually surprised at how many wineries
there were and how many wine tours are offered to tourists.
(22:25):
So you don't need to drive, just get a tour,
sit back and enjoy the ride and taste some great wines.
So what are you going to be tasting? Interestingly, it's hot,
You're in the plains. You're an alluvial river valley because
the Pedernellas River is right there. So it's really actually
a great grape growing area. There are some good conditions.
Poor soil means the vines have to struggle to get
(22:47):
more water. You want only a wine, can you be
poor and struggle and it's a good thing. So a
lot of the wines tend to be made with varieties
from this Rhone Valley, surraw vedra Ussan Vina, Southern Italy
like Aglianico and Spain, lots of Temporneo and Portugal so
(23:11):
Teriga and now so you know, lots of grapes in
that area. Being a meat country, you're gonna have probably
some cattle country. You're gonna have some awesome red wines.
I think the red wines were stronger than white. But
I had some pretty good vermintinos, which is an Italian
and French grape, and a vina that I liked, and
even and I had a pretty good Svenium law. They're
doing a lot there and at one winery we had
(23:34):
some amazing sparkling. So I'm gonna tell you where we
went again. Our troop was organized, but you can have
a wine tour customized for you as well, based on
what you like, and I would highly recommend it. So
we went to okay, my absolute Go Go Go Winery.
Okay Ya, it's woman owned, like Dots Bakery, woman owned
(23:55):
support women own businesses. Myerson Vineyard is a woman owned
awesome winery and it's beautiful. The owner is Crystal Patel.
She's like straight out of like gorgeous. She's a long, tall,
beautiful Texas drink of water and so nice. She grew
up on this beautiful ranch. She's an only child like me.
(24:18):
She took us on the tour. She was in financial
technology and just said I'm done. She came back to
the ranch, did a lot of work, a lot of research,
taught herself how to make wine, she is self taught
and she makes beautiful wines. I'm not going to go
into the details of what we tasted other than the
(24:39):
fact that there was. Every single one of them was stunning.
I particularly to Rose. I just loved it. But if
I had brought back wines, they would have been mayor
Stone's wines. It's M. E. I. E. R. S. T O.
Ny Mayorstone Vineyards. They've got a really good wine club.
When we were there, one of the group of wine
club evers were celebrating her birthday. They've won several awards.
(25:01):
You'll see a big saddle. When you win Best of Texas,
you get a saddle. Every single wine was perfect. It
just really impressed me about the quality of Texas wines.
The second I would recommend is Pedernalas Cellars. It's one
of Texas's must established and respective wineries that the owners
are actually from I think Denmark or Sweden, but they
(25:23):
lived in California. They also left corporate world and moved
to Texas because they loved it, and they've been coming
to this area for a long time. The winery is stunning.
It's located on a plateau like so high up. I
remember this is hill country, so there are hills and valleys.
Then there's a river valley. You can see over the
Pedernalas River off in the distance there's a huge patio.
(25:45):
We had a great tasting experience here. Some of the
nicest tasting room people. What I learned a number of
people we met in tasting rooms it's like their second
career or their retirement career, literally, and I thought to myself,
maybe I could do that. So we had I don't
remember her name, but she was so enthusiastic about talking
about the story of ped analysis, serving the wines, and
(26:07):
it was her retirement career and she just loved it
was The hospitality was amazing. This winery has amazing red wines.
I think the red wines where their strength, with the
Timporanny as being standout Timpanny. It was a Spanish grape.
It's gone all over Spain. It really does well here
(26:29):
in Texas. So man really terrific. The next one we
stopped at was if you want to try what you
call smaller indie wineries, the Texas Wine Collective is a
great stop. It appears to be popular on the Texas
Wine Tour route because we saw a few wine vans
there with people at different areas tasting. We tasted wines
(26:51):
from three different smaller producers. Again, I can't go into
details get on my coats here, but it was really nice.
It was really pleasant. It's fun to see what smaller
wineries are doing because it doesn't have to be big.
We did pass a lot of very big wineries that
look like a lot of major money sunk into them.
Probably we'll go back and check those out, but I
(27:12):
liked who we saw and who we met with. Another winery,
Heath Family Brands. They're actually a bigger company. They have
a winery impassa Roblast. They also have the k Estate,
which is a wine club that you can join. All
these wineries have wine clubs what I'm gonna talking about,
but this was more of a wine slash club like
(27:32):
private club, kind of like what six Twists does also
with their club, but you can still go. But here
they have a wine club in a gorgeous tasting rooms
you can go taste, but they also have a really
fantastic restaurant only open to club members that overlooks this
huge patio in the vineyards. We being there on a
press trip, got to go have lunch there. It was
(27:54):
really terrific, and we're joining the club because you get
great deals on the wines. I particularly sparkling Winders. I
think it was a sparkling Shin and Blanc. It was
really terrific. Again, nice ones for Kase. It actually thought
the whites were stronger than the reds. The great thing
about Texas is you can get the full range white, rose, red,
and sparkling, and there's enough made with different types of
(28:16):
grape varieties to suit your taste. Im Palette. Another winery,
but much more I mentioned earlier is wild Seed Farm. Okay,
this place is like epic and you need to have
it on her schedule. It is the largest wildflower farm
in the United States. It supplies many other companies. The
(28:39):
founder is just adorable. I just could have like hugged
them John. I think his lesson was Thomas. We took
the tour, the wildflowers weren't as blush and plush. They
were like this. Actually that's one of my photos behind me.
But they're beautiful. It's a great place to take kids.
There's a gift shop. You could just stay there forever,
but they also a great tasting room where you can
(29:01):
tie their wines because they have as huge as you
see in the back of the photo. There's vineyards because
they're also a grower. A grower means they grow grapes
and they supply them to other wineries like Meerstone actually
buys grapes from Wild Sea. But they're also a producer.
Remember earlier in the show, I talked about how six
Twists does a lot with grower Champagnes well grower, and
(29:24):
a grower is a grower. Producer is a grower producer.
So Wild Seed makes terrific wines. We tasted, we didn't
have a lot of time to taste them all. The
one that I wanted to taste we didn't get to
was Aglianico, which one like an award in Texas, but
the Tempernio was terrific. I think we tasted a blend
with Kaepernie Frank and Capsov and Tempernao terrific. They make
(29:46):
a couple of blends. They're really you like those firm
red wines with great tan in. You're going to love
these wines. So they also make wines as is dust
Peach House kind of interesting, right, But you didn't think
there was so much mind there. Another thing we did
probably could have been a better timing, was we visited
some peach farms. Texas is a big producer of peaches
(30:10):
and other agriculture products, including wonderful fresh ferries. But it
was supposedly peach season. However, we know Mother Nature likes
to do things on her time, so the peach season
was running a little late. However, if you go in
the summer, do stop, buy and support these farmers. They
have beautiful tasting rooms and hospitality options for you. Three
(30:31):
we visit it and I'll mention Jenski Orchards big orchard.
They also have corn and mazes, twenty different varieties of peaches,
twenty different varieties of peaches. Okay, how many of you
have I've had maybe three up in Georgia, so most
of seven generations of Jenski's have been working this farm.
They also have a little tiny B and b maybe
(30:53):
you could sleep one or two people on property. There's
a barbecue pits place next door. I used to take
kids and roam around, and there's a great gift shoper
and taste and purchase more peach jam, saltas, jellies and
fresh fruits and vegetables because it's a farm. The next one,
who I love this place Vogel Orchards, another family owned
(31:15):
farms since nineteen fifty three. They're trying to do something
about climate change because you know, the peach season was
going to be a smaller peach harvest. Who's going to
be smaller due to hail, which is like the hail
as the hell for people in agriculture. It really downages
crops to be a smaller but good peach season, but smaller.
But the owners, the Vogel family is also doing research
(31:40):
to grow different types of berries. They're working with Texas
A and M to see what they could do to
help provide alternative growing options. If one crop is not
doing great, they can do another at that Right now,
it's June. The peaches are awesome. We did get a
great peach cobbler when we went to Vogel and it
(32:01):
was I think his grandmother's recipe we had with peach
ice cream. So I was feeling pretty peachy, which is
while I'm wearing his shirt. Another cool place I think
I tried every I think I tried every sample in
the store is Burke's Corner. Three generations strong, great shop
to buy not only jams, jellies, kind of interesting peach wine.
(32:22):
It was pretty nice, kind of like a mescato, which
is about right. Mescato has peach qualities to it and
other locally made products from pastas to jerky. Kind of
a cool place, honey, and a lot of people were
lining up for the fresh peach ice cream. I should
have would have could have got that, because by the
time I'd finished, I had said, man, I've had everything.
(32:43):
The peach ice cream. Well, I did have other vogel
orchards with my cobbler, but it was pretty awesome. And frankly,
I didn't know that peaches were such a big deal
in Texas because I grew up in Georgia and for me,
it was all about Georgia peaches. So there you go
a couple of other things. So what do you do
in town? I've already talked about shopping, drinking, eating, more shopping,
(33:06):
but you've got to embrace the history because this is
so cool. When I go traveling, and I urge everybody
to do this. When you land somewhere you've never been
the first thing I like to do is I like
to go visit the tourist office, the local tourist office
and actually talk to the people there and ask them
what are things I should not miss, what are things
(33:27):
that are really great for my personal interests. We did
that at the Visit Fredericksburg Tourism Office, which has a
really great short film. I also like to learn about
the history and providence of town, particularly when I hear
that has a really interesting heritage, like Fredericksburg, which is
the German heritage. There is a film, it's very short,
(33:49):
it's actually incredibly informative at the Visit Fredericksburg Tourism Office.
It tells you the history and struggle that these German
immigrants face. I mean, basically, some nobility, a group of nobility,
noblemen in Germany negotiated a land grant in this part
of south central Texas with the Choktaw Indians. It was
(34:11):
one of the first ever doing business with the Chalktaws
and the Germans. They bought it, but they didn't buy
the greatest location. They didn't know that at the time
because it was Texas and they didn't know and there
was no Google. Remember it was back on another century.
The immigrants all came over. Many people said we want
(34:31):
to leave to find better land. But they didn't realize
that when the boat landed they were going to be
in the Gulf coast, because Texas is big, and the
boat landed on the Golf coast. So what were they
met with? Heat, humidity, mosquitoes and other bugs. What the
nobility didn't figure out. While they could figure out how
to negotiate a deal with the chalk Taws, but they
(34:52):
hadn't figured out is how to get the immigrants from
the muggy, hot Gulf coasts. And remember Germans were not
used to muggy and hot. Their f used to German
weather and alpay weather and cooler weather. How to get
these immogrants who were struggling and suffering in the heat
up through Texas to the land that had been contracted.
(35:12):
So it took another man, a priest, who came over
and he actually ended up finding a settlement that would work,
and he helped the Germans navigate by foot and maybe
by horse to get up there in Texas as big.
I can only imagine how hard it was. Of great
respect for the people who settled there and the ancestors
(35:36):
of the many people we meet. But this is all
told in the film. It was really interesting. Another thing
you should do is I like to visit the local
history museum that tells the heritage of a place. The
Pioneer Museum does just that. It's a walkable outdoor museum
with structures that show how people lived back in the
(35:58):
eighteen hundreds. On a cabin. You find the home of
a wealthy person, the home of a simple person. You
find a general store, a church, and you'll find something
that's an architectural specific item, a piece of ark excuse me,
a piece of archchitecture unique to Fredericksburg, which is called
a Sunday house. A Sunday house is a small house.
(36:23):
Think about like the tiny house or cabin that was
a two story structure that farmers would use when they
came in to Fredericksburg for the weekend to buy supplies
and attend church services. Thus the term Sunday house. What's
unique about Sunday houses is there two stories and the
stories are connected by an outdoor staircase. Right The outdoor
(36:48):
staircase takes you from the working quarters or the greeting
court meeting quarters, to the sleeping quarters upstairs, and then
there's a lean to kitchen in the back. There's several
preserved Sunday houses and around Fredericksburg, and at the Pioneer
Museum you'll see one called the Weber Sunday House. But
that's just one of those unique things about Fredericksburg Pioneer Museum.
(37:11):
Something I didn't know. I do know now. When I
landed in San Antonio, you'll see it's the home of
for you know, the military, a military city, and you
feel that pride for the military throughout Texas, but especially
when you land in San Antonio and also when you
are in Fredericksburg. It's very important. The National Museum of
(37:34):
the Pacific War is a very large museum and Smithsonian affiliate,
spread over three galleries, six acres fifty five thousand square
feet of exhibit space that tells the story of World
War Two. Now we have the World War Two Museum
here in New Orleans. I think it's bigger, the biggest
(37:56):
in the country, but I would say the National Museum
of the Pacific War is also up there in the
ranking of size matters. We didn't get to go to
it because we were busy tasting wine. We did visit
the Pioneer Museum and the visitors Center. Part of the
group of the non wine drinkers got to go to
the National Museum of the Pacific War. But if you
(38:17):
were a history buff, or you're going with family who
are history buffs, or kids who you want to teach,
this is a great museum. I did learn that, you know,
the connection is deeper than just the museum. Fredericksburg was
the birthplace of William Nimitz, who served as the commander
in chief Fleet Admiral in the US Navy over several
(38:41):
forces in World War Two. He is a local hero.
You will see tributes to him throughout downtown and a statue,
and there's an organization called the Nimitz Foundation dot Org.
I think there's also a submarine called Nivet's Mouth. So
big hero. A lot of pride in you know, serving
the United States, You're going to see a lot of
(39:02):
civic pride. You'll see a lot of positive national pride.
And it's a place that is welcoming to all and
I think that's nice. Other things that I would recommend
doing is go hear some live music and really do
some line dancing because you're in Texas. I'm taking line
dancing lessons now. I believe it or not, and I
think it's awesome down the road. In twenty twenty seven,
(39:25):
we did a hard Haad tour fine of a huge
shopping complex called The Muse and there will be a
Kimpton Hotel and a lot of boutique retail shops all Texas.
Nothing like Big Lot or anything like that. Nothing, you know,
Big Brand is going to be all Texas. That's going
to open twenty twenty seven and will be really studying.
(39:49):
A great place to stay, but also big for Again,
this is a big wedding destination. So if you're planning
a wedding or an anniversary or a reunion, this is
a great spot. There's something to do, we've ever been
to have a good time, and there's plenty of facilities
for it. That's twenty twenty seven. I hope to be
back in twenty twenty seven too. I'd like there was
a list of things I'd like to have done if
I had more time, like go to some of the
(40:12):
natural resources outside of town that I stually saw, you
know I saw. I think it was a rhino rescue.
Am I losing my mind? There was something there that
looked really interesting with wild animals rescue and hiking because
I like to hike, and I think it's probably a
great biking area as well. But I'll go back. It
was pretty easy to get there. I don't know where
(40:33):
it's like to get there from Dallas, but we did
San Antonio, which, by the way, is another town I
want to visit. Oh, last, but not least more information.
I think I covered everything in here, but we did,
and I think we did a lot for three days.
I do want to remind you that we did a
lot for three days, but I don't want you to
pack it in. I'm a big believer when I'm not
(40:55):
on press trips that you take it easy and take
it slow. You know. The Italian love la la docho vita.
They like to save your life and take it slow.
They'll sit and linger over coffee. They'll sit and linger
over an appartivo. If you travel, or when you travel
and if you visit Fredericksburg, which I hope you do,
(41:15):
or anywhere you go, take time to sit in a cafe,
have your morning coffee and some local amazing bread or pastry.
Haven't the appartivo, which is that special hour between four
and seven where you have the sprints or white, you know,
sprits or glass of wine or champagne or at six Twists,
(41:37):
maybe you can have some champagne and caviar. But linger
linger and savor the moment. Don't rush. I see people
planning travel itineries and they share them online and it's
like they don't have time to breath. You don't need
to rush it. And to that point, I want to
thank the folks who invited us and organized our trips.
(41:59):
Physic Frederick Fidd's visit Fredericksburg, TX dot com. Visit Fredericksburg,
Texas and get your pr It was a great trip.
It was fun. I got a lot out of it,
and I found a place here in Louisiana that's kind
of a great hop, skip and a jump away. I
want to visit. I'll keep traveling, I'll keep sharing with
you because I want you to explore the world. You
(42:21):
only have one life. You can either hang out and
spend it a home and put everything on your wish list,
or you can take action and put it on your
to do list, or you can say getting up and
getting out on the road list. I'm that last person
you know, you know you can't die with regret. You
(42:41):
go to die happy and you don't know when that
day will be. So live every moment in the fullest
because as I wrap up the show, I like to say,
you only have one life and you deserve to live
it on your terms. Make confident choices that you believe in.
Take your time to do that. Listen to people, talk
to people, listen to experts that follow your gut in
(43:01):
your heart, and always choose fearless and fabulous when you
choose to live life in your terms. Thank you. I'm
Melanie Young, Follow me, I'm Melanie Fabulous. Check out my
substack Melanie Fabulous, and check out my other show that
connected The Pable Live with David Ransom and until next time,
(43:22):
stay fearless and fabulous. Thank you,
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.