TEXAS WINE AND BLUEBONNET TRAIL

On April 11th, a friend and I decided to participate in the final weekend of the Texas Bluebonnet Wine and Cheese Trail. I discovered it via 365 Things to Do in Houston almost by accident, which was great. It's one of those sites that whenever I remember it exists, I'm like, hot dang look at all these great things I could be doing in Houston. I'm not sure how other people are, but I feel like as a native Houstonian I take for granted that there's nothing to do, when in fact, that's not the case at all. Courtney, get out and live your life! You're not stuck in the 'burbs anymore!!

I thought there'd be a bit more to visiting each winery, but honestly all they did was sit us down at a table, throw some cheese on the table, then describe the two wine pairings they had for the day, and then... they left us alone. Like. That was it. I was hoping for some kind of description of the history of their winery, or maybe a tour of the place... but apparently that costs more than the $25 we paid to see the seven participating wineries. Our original plan had been to hit up two wineries, and when we realized how short our time would be at each, we quickly revised that to three wineries. And then at the third revised that to four. So we saw, in order:

• Bernhardt Winery in Plantersville, TX
• Cork This! Winery in downtown Magnolia, TX
• Peach Creek Winery in College Station, TX, and
• Messina Hof Winery in Bryan, TX.

All in all, that was about $20 of driving. We left around 11a from Tomball, TX and then made our way up north. I think my favorite wineries were Cork This! and Messina Hof. Cork This! because it was adorable, had great names for their wines and had especially SWEET and delicious wines (not to mention a wine named after my alma mater), but especially because it would honestly be such a quick drive from Tomball to go there. Like, what a fun little day - drive out to Magnolia, spend $8 to sample six of their wines, and then maybe do some antique shopping and find your way home. Doesn't it sound quaint???

Messina Hof was neat because it looked like they hosted actual tours (here is a list of their activities for the weekend), held some fun events, and also - there was a B&B at the winery! They have another "trail" event in July, so we're thinking about going up to Bryan once again, spending the night, and then the next day hitting the three wineries near Brenham that we missed this time around. Should be fun!