Beautiful East Texas Wineries You Should Visit

Hey travel lovers! I am excited to be sharing with you some wineries to visit that is a short road trip from the DFW metroplex! I shared with you before some beautiful wineries in North Texas and now I am sharing beautiful wineries in East Texas – The Piney Woods Wine Trail. Visiting wineries and vineyards is a fun outdoor option to do while socially distancing. Below are some East Texas wineries you should visit for the day or make even make it a staycation!

KIEPERSOL ESTATE VINEYARDS & WINERY

One winery that I had saved on my Instagram since 2018 was Kiepersol Winery! I came across a photo of it and the grounds looked so beautiful. At the time, this was the only winery I knew in East Texas so I never made it out there and boy I wished I had visited a long time ago! It is absolutely beautiful and serene!

When you first arrive at Kiepersol from the side street, you realize how huge this vineyard really is. When you first arrive, you actually drive through this beautiful residential area with beautiful trees, flowers and homes. These are the Kiepersol Estates We first went to the main building which was up on a hill that had some amazing views of the vineyards and tree line! It was harvest day so it was nice that we were able to see the vineyards full of grapes and even gotten to taste them too! Their grapes were so good and sweet! Where the vineyards are located is also where they do their wine tours and distillery tours. Due to Covid, Kiepersol tours and tasting room are currently closed. However there is still a nice big shaded outdoor patio area where you can enjoy wines that you buy while enjoying the views.

We were greeted by Michael who also gave us a private tour! When tours start back up, you definitely want him to do your tours! He was very knowledgeable about the history of Kiepersol and wine making and you can tell he is very passionate about wines and speaks from the heart! I absolutely loved hearing the story on how this winery ended up being one of the biggest and first wineries in East Texas! Initially I was going to share part of the story on my blog, but I thought it would be best for you to hear it firsthand when you make your trip to Kiepersol. I will tell you is that the story begins in South Africa of all places!

One thing to my surprise was that Kiepersol not only sells wines but liquors as well which is why they also have a distillery on the grounds as well. They have an assortment of liquors including rum and their version of tequila which they named Texuila! You should check out their Instagram for the video sessions on different cocktail recipes. We didn’t try their liquor, but the wines especially their canned wines were all very good, we bought 2 packs Flight & Fizzy Vit and I wished I bought more because you cannot get the cans in DFW. However you can find some of their bottled wines at Total Wine stores.

If driving 2 hours and back same day is not your thing, then make it a staycation by staying at one of their Bed & Breakfast they also have on the property. There are different rooms and homes you can choose from with amazing views. There is also an RV park option too. You can also have brunch the next morning at the Kiepersol Restaurant as well! We enjoyed a great brunch here as well! I enjoyed their highly recommended Kiepersol Eggs Benedict which included a filet mignon. It was so good. My enjoyed their Gourmet Kiepersol Burger with gouda cheese also recommended. Both were so good and filling.

LOS PINOS RANCH VINEYARDS & WINERY

The next winery we visited was Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards which is about an hour and 20 minutes north of Kiepersol Winery. This winery is located in Pittsburg, TX and they also have their sister location in Fredericksburg, TX which is 4 hours south of DFW but this location is much closer. If you want to feel like you are in Tuscany, the grounds of this vineyard is very beautiful as well. They have tall pretty Italian cypress trees just like how you see in Tuscany. You can also have a staycation here too but staying at one of the Tuscan CottagesTuscan Cottages near the vineyard.

Los Pinos Ranch has both indoor and outdoor seating. They have covered outdoor seating in their patio and an outdoor deck seating in front of the patio as well as a nice shaded gazebo. For us, we preferred the outdoor deck seating which was nice because we arrived before sunset. At this hour, it seemed to be a popular spot for locals.

Not only can you have a wonderful tasting but it is also a Restaurant as well. They have a full menu where you can order something small like tapas to be shared (fruit/cheese and meat/cheese boards, crab cakes and mussels or full entrees such as rib-eye steaks, salmon or pastas. Because we had a big late brunch we opted to try one of their desserts. We ordered the Menage which was ice cream dessert on an oreo cookie crust and almonds. It was so good and perfect for a warm evening. Best of all it came with a sparkler which was a nice surprise.

For our wine tasting, we decided to go with 2 dry and 2 sweet wines. One thing that I loved about Los Pinos Winery is their nice selection of sweet wines. Visiting different wineries in Texas, not alot of wineries have a big selection of sweet wines to taste-usually like 2 or 3 choices. They had at least 10 options! We tried their Colbri wine which is a rare blend of Blanc Du Bois and Black Spanish grapes. This was my favorite blush wine. We also tried the Rosie on the Riveter which was not as sweet but more of a refreshing semi sweet wine which I also loved as well.

The dry wines we had was the Rosato which is a mix of 50% Dolcetto, 25% Tempranillo and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. For a dry wine, this one was really good as well. For the last wine we tasted was of course Tempranillo. Whenever I visited wineries in Texas, I have to at least have one Tempranillo wine. I feel like it is a heartier fruitier wine featuring dark berries such as black cherry, blackberry, strawberry and raspberry. I love it because it is not too dry. One thing that I loved about our tasting is that it comes out on these cute little newspapers. It give the experience so much character.

VALLE DELLA PACE WINERY

Another winery we were able to visit was Valle Della Pace Winery in Garden Valley, TX. This was actually the first winery we reached from DFW which was about an hour and half away. Valle della pace means valley of peace in Italian. This winery is cute small winery and vineyard where the owners actually live on the property. It was harvest day all weekend for all wineries we visited so some of the grapes were already picked for harvesting.

We got their as soon as they opened and they were kind of enough to give us a little tour and talk about the wines that they grow and harvest. We also got to taste some of their grapes which was really good. There was a separate vineyard that had not been harvested because they were different white grapes that were not ready yet. These vines were so tall, big and full and these grapes tasted so good.

At this winery there were no tastings and the tasting room was closed due to Covid. However you can buy a bottle of wine and enjoy it on their outdoor patio. I love peach wines and I saw that they had one on their Instagram, so I bought a peach wine to enjoy at home. You can also find their wines at Total Wine stores as well.

OTHER EAST TEXAS WINERIES

So when we visited East Texas the goal was to visit 4 with the 4th being Enoch’s Stomp Vineyard & Winery in Longview. The distance between each winery that we visited is about an hour to an hour and half apart. So to spend more quality time at each, we decided to cut it just 3 wineries. When we do visit Enoch and other East Texas wineries, I will update this blog post with my reviews and photos.

However if you plan on making it a weekend getaway, below are some more wineries to visit that the other wineries also told us we should visit as well.

Courtesy of Pinewood Wine Trail

I hope you get to visit East Texas and all these beautiful wineries! It is really pretty and green and lots of hills! Stay tuned for more Texas Travel content!

*This post was sponsored but all thoughts shared were 100% my own.