As we ventured forth on our first RV excursion we discovered two things right away:
A) The miles anticipated by our GPS map calculated our trip time at the actual speed limit for the particular roadways that we would be traveling, averaging 70 – 75mph,
B) The actual speed limit we would be traveling, roughly 60mph, would greatly impact our planned itinerary.
So, what that meant was that although our trip was supposed to take us from Austin, Tx to Santa Fe, NM, with a two day stop at the McDonald’s Observatory in Ft. Davis, Tx, we ended up going only as far as Ruidoso, NM so as to get back to the Observatory in time to make my husband’s Board of Visitors yearly meeting.
We also realized that we may have been a bit overzealous about our itinerary, having 5 overnight stays in 7 days, and realized very quickly that we want to spend less time behind the windshield, and more time enjoying that places that we stay.
There was one unexpected adventure that I want to share with you because it’s very germane to the wine lovers in the crowd.
On day two of our journey we were headed to Palo Duro Canyon. The initial plan was to stay at an already reserved RV Park in Canyon, Texas and then once settled in, we would attend the play about the history of Texas that was put on by the park employees at Palo Duro Canyon State Park.
However, as we’re driving that way, I’m working on my laptop and came across a YELP (LINK) review about a winery in Canyon Texas. Neither one of us had any clue that there was a winery in Canyon, Texas, so I dug a bit deeper and discovered that not only was there a winery there, but the Bar Z Winery was a Harvest Hosts winery as well. Total score!
Really quickly, Harvest Hosts is a club for RV owners that, after you pay a yearly membership fee, affords you a free evening at a lorry load of wineries across the entire country, along with the opportunity for wine tastings, and in some places, food pairing dinners. I will write a full blog at a later date on Harvest Hosts but in the interim, feel free to check out their website and if you haven’t joined, and are a wine lover, I highly recommend it.
Well, knowing that we could stay at the winery for free, I immediately got on my phone and called the winery and was able to make a reservation for that evening. I cancelled our original reservation and we plugged the new address into our navigation system and we were off! We’d literally just joined Harvest Hosts a week before our trip and this would be a great opportunity to try our membership out and of course, taste some new wines.
We arrived at the Winery around 4PM, set up the RV, and then looked around a bit. The place initially looked a bit deserted but soon we discovered that the owner, Monte Dixon, was indeed there and he was ready to tell us all about the winery, the varietals that they made, along with a myriad of other stories about music and the good old days.
We spent an hour or two getting to know about the winery and about Monte himself. If you'd like to know more about him, Texas Wine Lover blog wrote a great article that you can read here.
We learned that the grapes for the wine were grown in the Amarillo region, trucked down to Canyon, and then the wine was made right there, in house, at the winery.
His barrel room wasn’t tremendously spacious, but he did have it set up to host what looked like wine dinners there.
We also got to taste some really good wine. A couple of stand outs:
The 2009 Tempranillo was full bodied, and a bit spicy, and as good as any Rioja wine that we’ve enjoyed. And for $60.00 a case, you can’t go wrong.
The 2015 Pinot Noir was also a favorite and as somewhat of a Pinot snob, I enjoyed this one so much that we purchased a bottle to have with our dinner that evening.
All in all, we had such a great time, tasting wines, talking about music, and enjoying his Audiophile sound system, that we completely lost track of time and missed our opportunity to go to see the Texas Show at the park.
So, we plan B’d the evening and I heated up some left over Chicken & Sausage Jambalaya from the night before (our first use of our new Instant Pot was a great success!)
We settled outside to eat and watch the sunset from his picturesque patio overlooking the Canyon, along with that bottle of his 2015 Pinot Noir, which was wonderful, and talked about our adventure thus far and how much we were looking forward to doing just what we were doing…creating amazing memories together.
XOXO
Lisa
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