Austin Wine & Music Festival, Part Two

As there were way too many photos this weekend for one post, this is part two of two. For part one go here.

Now that we got our fantastic morning out of the way, it was finally time to go to the Austin Wine & Music Festival - and how convenient as it was right across the street from our cupcake stop. We found a parking spot and found ourselves waiting for the gates to open, killing time playing with the camera.

Edited to add: I have to back up a little earlier and say that when I bought the tickets I read that the festival was 'at the Domain' which is an extremely nice, ritzy shopping area that I don't necessarily shop at, but love to walk around in.  Fast forward to Sunday and we drive into the Domain and nothing. Not a single booth. Nada. So I look at the tickets again and notice it says the festival is in the backyard of the Domain, so we drive to the backyard (aka where nothing else is) and see a grassy area/parking lot with a bunch of booths set up. So not my type of thing and nothing I would've bought tickets for had I seen it firsthand ever. I'm a scenery girl and I saw no scenery. Fortunately, I have my amazing much more spontaneous without researching than me husband to balance me out, so while I'm blabbing on about selling our tickets, he says, let's just try it, we already have the tickets, let's just go, check it out, and if we don't like it we'll leave. Begrudgingly, I agree, even though we're both allergic to wine and in my mind I just can't imagine anything we would find to do there.

So now that the gates were open, the first thing after we got our tickets situated and our wristbands, we approached a table with wine glasses. Immediately, I was sold - I get to taste wine (maybe) AND get a wine glass etched with a cute guitar and the name of the event? I was so in.

We made sure to get a photo before the crowds arrived, and, at this point, we were already on our second tasting. I quickly found out the trick to not having an allergic reaction was to ask the wine connoiseurs if they add tannins to their wine, which is what I'm allergic to, and if they didn't, which one of their wines had the lowest tannins. Turns out tannins are a natural preservative naturally developed in the skin of grapes with purple grapes having a lot more naturally occurring tannins. Some wineries end up adding more tannins for more of a preservative effect. Most of the wineries didn't, though, and knew which one of their wines had the least amount of tannins if I just asked. I ended up sticking with a lot of sweet white wines, which was just perfect as they just happened to all be chilled for the hot summer day. Speaking of hot summer days, even on such a day, the continuous breeze along the shaded walkway between the wine booths, ironically, created by the wine booths themselves, kept the temperature oh so perfect.

I wasn't the best at writing down the booth names. The wine was just so good. However, this booth had the cutest little tables to sit down at, and the volunteer there was so sweet that I actually do have the name of this booth. It's called Retreat Hill in Montgomery, Texas, near Houston, and after looking at their website, we just might be taking a weekend trip to visit, especially as there is a lake right next door. I don't remember the taste of their wine or if I even tasted it, but the service and friendliness was enough to make me not care.

This particular sweet dessert wine from Llano Estacado Winery was the second one I tried, and my absolute favorite. Llano is just a short hour away from Austin.

The wine on the far left from JB Braman Winery is the first one I tried, another favorite, and the perfect winery to visit on the way down to the beach as they are located near Corpus Christi. I loved their summer set up on beach towels with brightly colored wine tubs, and the girl who was pouring had on a bright yellow fun summer dress. As the day wore on, I noticed I was drawn more towards the booths with the girls dressed like I would dress - if they like the same clothes, wouldn't they like the same wine? Silly logic, but it turned out  to work pretty well for me.

After almost working our way through our wristbands we found a retreat at an event tent set up by Marquee Events. We had met the owners of Marquee Events back when we attended the Tribeza Wedding Day at the Driskill. The wife was so sweet and wonderful and sat and talked with us for about twenty minutes, that I just love them. This was the first time I had experienced their event tents, though, and it felt like another world in there. The temperature was perfect and the ceiling decorations and cushy floor covering made me feel like I was in a building, not a tent.

Before we left, I even found my scenery - a lone grove of trees that made the perfect picture opportunity.

 And one last final Brando artsy shot - the perfect end to a perfect weekend.

Remember to check out Uniquely Your City and submit your entry in time for June's feature post next Wednesday.