Fredericksburg on the 4th

For the 4th of July weekend, I headed down to Fredericksburg, TX! I only discovered this place a couple of months ago as it started popping up more often on the Dallas blogging scene as a spot to visit. It is known as Texas Wine Country and it certainly lived up to its name. It is a little over four hours southwest of Dallas and once you arrive in the town, you see so many wineries and vineyards.

Fredericksburg is a small town of German influence where, apparently, German settlers moved and established their customs in direct rebuttal to English customs. Though today it is very much Texan, you can find German restaurants to get that semi-authentic experience. I say it’s a small town because there are not that many people and there isn’t much to do outside of the city center, but the actual town is pretty spread out due to the amount of farm land. We attempted to plan in advance by booking a reservation at a wine cellar for a tasting and eat at a German restaurant called Otto’s, but in typical fashion, things did not totally go according to plan.

When we arrived at the wine cellar, Lost Draw Cellars, not only did they not honor our reservation by stating it was first-come, first-served, they cut off the tasting a few minutes before we got there at 4:00 p.m. and ran out of charcuterie boards. So, you may be thinking, “Why would you have such a late reservation on a holiday?” Well, we were not able to check in to our Airbnb until 3:00 p.m. (much like a hotel) and there obviously wasn’t an option to arrive earlier to do the wine tasting and attempt to drive to the Airbnb afterwards because I NEVER drink and drive. They also failed to mention in their email that they were closing at 5:00 p.m. for the holiday…

In my opinion, this was poor service because we were not granted the experience we signed up for, they never disclosed that there would be different hours for the holiday, and, again, it’s a country town, so it’s not like we could have just walked somewhere else. You needed a car or car service to get around, so the only option we had was to buy a glass or bottle and wait out the hour which is what we did.

After dinner, we walked off the food and alcohol, but quickly realized we had nothing to do to kill the three hours until fireworks, so we actually ended up calling it a night. The next morning just consisted of the taking the photos you see in this post and walking around the city center before heading back.

I definitely want to return to Fredericksburg, but I would gladly pay the more expensive price to go a vineyard with a large group next time. With it just being an overnight trip and not even being able to start the day until after 3:00 p.m., it wasn’t cost-effective to pay more for a wine experience and pay for the stay on top of that. Oh, and next time, I will also try some German food–that is if I don’t get to Germany first 😉

xx, AE

P.S. Thank you SO much to Fernando Trueba for capturing these beautiful photos in this post!! Click here to check out more of his photography. He can also be found on Instagram. If you are interested in booking with him, he is based in Dallas 🙂