Wineries
Everything’s bigger in Texas—including wine. Spanning nine million acres near Austin and San Antonio, Texas Hill Country’s 100-plus wineries pour everything from Sangiovese to Tannat, ready for your next road-trip sip.
Founded as an AVA in 1991, Texas Hill Country started with just a handful of pioneers. Three decades later, it’s one of the largest wine regions by area and the beating heart of Texas wine tourism.
Limestone and granite bluffs, cedar-scrub hills, river valleys, and well-drained soils give vintners a mosaic of terroirs to work with; meanwhile, most wineries supplement their estate plots with fruit hauled from six hours north in the higher, drier Texas High Plains. The result is an impressive palette of flavors and styles—from citrus-bright Roussanne to muscular Tempranillo blends—showcasing the state’s “everything’s possible” mindset.
Note: More than 100 businesses in Texas Hill Country hold a Texas “G” permit and may legally produce or sell wine. However, the list below features only wineries that belong to the Texas Hill Country Wineries Association, which has sponsored this guide.
Texas Hill Country Winery Facts
- 100+ bonded winery permits operate inside the AVA, covering 9 million acres—the size of nine Napa Valleys.
- Texas Hill Country tasting rooms greet 1 million visitors each year, a magnet for wine-trail weekends and road-trippers alike.
- Local cellars work with 70+ grape varieties—from Spanish Tempranillo and Mourvèdre to Italian Sangiovese and sparkling-ready Blanc du Bois.
- 80% of Texas grapes are farmed in the Texas High Plains, so Texas Hill Country blends often combine Texas High Plains’ acidity with home-grown richness.
SOURCES
Selected Texas Hill Country Wineries
Elisa Christopher Wines is a family run winery by husband and wife team, Elisa and Chris Jones. Chris and Elisa purchased their 43 acre property in 2022 and hit the ground running on building a production facility and tiny house tasting room. While Chris and Elisa love still red, and white wine, Chris and Elisa are passionate about making traditional method sparkling wine in Texas. They’ve invested in champagne equipment from France and for neck freezing, riddling and disgorging and are excited to be pioneers of mechanization to sparkling wine in Texas. They believe we need more sparkling wine as every day has an element in it to celebrate. Elisa's family has historic Texas roots having come to Texas in 1855 as farmers, she helped her father plant his vineyard in Burleson Country in 2007. Although Elisa is a 3rd generation Aggie, she attended Texas Tech's winemaking certificate program while she was still working for the Department of Defense, so that she could move back to Texas after years of travel to make wine. She convinced her husband Chris to complete his winemaking certificate from Texas Tech during COVID so he could assist her as a “cellar rat.” As Chris has a full time career as a land planner, his skills were vital in laying out the winery property for future expansion. If you would have asked him 15 years ago if he would be making wine, he would have said he would have a greater chance of being an astronaut than helping make wine!
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