32 is Pretty Awesome- Becker Vineyards

Our second stop on the Fredericksburg Wine Road, Ariana's 32 Birthday Extravaganza was at Becker Vineyards.

Justin had gone ahead and booked us two spots on the Library tasting tour which meant we would get to see more than the average tour.  Tours of this nature at Becker are considered at capacity with 20 people on them. The day of our tour they only expected six people, including us.  Something about school getting started. We figured we were pretty lucky.

Well the other four people didn’t show up so Justin and I basically got a private tour with the Becker Vineyards General Manager, Bret Perrenoud. Bret was cool and walked us through the barrel rooms where we got to sample two different Merlots, one aging in stainless and another in oak. Turns out that rather than pick one over the other to sell, when their head winemaker blended the two together and the Beckers and Bret did a blind taste testing, people thought the blend was the strongest because the two were better together than either one alone.

It was pretty cool, because Becker has what are the first Texas coopered wine barrels and like any proud Texan, we had to get our picture taken with them.

Made in Texas!

Then it was on to the Becker Library.  

Here the bottles really did go on and on and on. 

We were fortunate enough to do a library tasting of the single vineyard Canada Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.  This a wine made from grapes grown near Plains, Texas by the Canada family.  The grapes are not from Canada.  They get that question a lot there. We got to taste the years 2008, 2009, and 2010.  I think Justin’s favorite was 2009. You can buy the 2010 on their website, but you can only get the other two when you do the Library tasting!

I couldn’t pick one.  So we got four of each so I can figure out which I like the best. However the production on all of them is limited, so I better just savor every glass I get no matter what. Especially with goodies like what they gave use for the tasting.

We also got to enjoy a little grape stomping before we got to the grape tasting.  

That look of what appears to be pure joy is also of I’m not sure how I feel about this feeling.

Justin also looks like he’s tired of the pictures and we’re only about half way into this trip at this point.

Look at how red those feet are!

I wanted to make shirts with our footprints, but Justin pointed out that was cute when little kids did it, but not so cute when adults did it.  And here it is for all the world to see: Justin’s right. About that.