Barons Creek Tasting Room Is Now Open in Bishop Arts. But What Is It?

Wine is big business in Texas. AgriLife Today recently reported that Texas ranks No. 5 in the country for wine production, and there are "increasingly positive trends that could make Texas No. 2 in the not-so-distant future." Well done, we're almost winning!

To boot, the state is home to almost 900 wineries, and the Texas wine industry pulls in more than $20 billion.

So, it makes sense that Hill Country wineries, like Barons Creek, are spreading their boozy wings by opening wine-tasting rooms across the state. In addition to its mothership in quaint Fredericksburg — where they also have an inn reminiscent of an Italian villa and offer a great wedding venue — the small "vineyard" has tasting rooms in Georgetown, Granbury, McKinney and now the Bishop Arts District, where the restaurant Ame used to be.

Barons Creek is hard to figure out, though. You'd be hard-pressed to find out about its wines, grapes, vines, techniques or even the owners' names on the website. There is plenty of information on their wine club and prices, like the 2020 Petite Sirah for $50. If that price made you spit your $10 French rosé on your screen, sames.

Here's the thing: we like the story. That's what makes a bottle of wine or a steak or a craft beer — interesting. For instance, McPherson is a vineyard in the Texas High Plains (THP) with a Sangiovese sold at Tom Thumb. Sounds basic and maybe boring, but this style of grape is from Tuscany and with a bit of research you'll learn that Clinton "Doc" McPherson planted Sangiovese vines in the THP in the late '60s, one of the vineyard's first varieties. Cool. A story: Tuscany by way of THP, where high elevation and long cool nights make for happy grapes.

Back to Barons Creek: There's a 2016 article about the Chase family who owns the winery and hails from Central Texas. The article made note of some long-lost vague family ties to the California wine industry.

We also found one blog post tucked away on the site with a bit more information, like that the grapes are harvested and pressed "as close to the harvest site as possible" with no indication of where that is. Buried deeply is a note that longtime winemaker Russell Smith is a consultant and two of their Spanish wines, Campeon and Hippo, are from his vineyards in Spain, which are finished and bottled in Texas. And, finally, this TripAdvisor page says they serve "carefully curated wines from all over the U.S. and Spain." Ah-ha! Carefully curated from all over.

Finally, we look up the vineyard in Fredericksburg to see whether there is a production facility or even vines. In the back of the facility, it looks like a cat scratch across the land of vines and the front yard seems to have vines, but hard to tell. Alas, certainly not enough to supply a wine club.
Back at the wine bar in Bishop Arts, you'll learn only things like this about the Zinfandel: "The deep purple color entices you visually."

But who are you, little Zin?

We point to Ampelos Wine Bar, also in Bishop Arts, for those stories that make sipping wine an afternoon sport. There, we tried a flight that included Beckmen's cabernet sauvignon. We easily found this story about the one steep hillside in San­ta Ynez, California, where the vines are coddled into becoming a product they are proud of.

An email to the Barons (and a phone call to confirm the email) for the story on their wines went unanswered.

Nonetheless, we fearlessly pulled up seats at the bar in the Barons tasting room in Bishops Arts during a shopping break in December. We went with the flight of red wine, which the top of the menu proclaims: "It all starts with the finest grapes." But who really knows?

The tasting is five 2-ounce pours of reds, starting soft, and working down to the heavy hitters. A 2020 Velvet is a mix of Malbec and Cabernet Franc. It's smooth, light and easy drinking. The description for the 2021 Zinfandel reads "a little extra time in the barrel and wham!" Wham. The 2022 LaBaroness was our least favorite, but the 2022 Reserve Tempranillo smoothed out and had more balance. A 2021 Crazy Train Cabernet was full-bodied and rich and would go fine with your rib-eye.

Nothing was awful. Nothing stood out. The wine-tasting room, where Ame's little bar used to be, has warm tones and comfortable seating. A charcuterie board down the bar was lush and looked tasty.

But on every menu in the tasting room, the wine club is pushed. Prices next to the wines include club prices; even the food menu has a note for special club prices. Which we did not sign up for.