Girls Weekend: Fredericksburg Wine Tour

The first post of what I’m sure will be many in my “Girls Weekend” blog series! What could be a better topic to cover than a Fredericksburg wine tour? You can easily turn a visit to Fredericksburg into a weekend or day trip!

Quick & Dirty: The Highlights

If you don’t want to read all the ins and outs, here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know:

• Use 290 Wine Shuttle for your transportation needs
• Make sure to stop by Grape Creek Winery and 4.0 Cellars

Tour Transportation

I highly recommend scheduling a ride with the 290 Wine Shuttle! For just $30, 290 Wine Shuttle picks you up and drops you off at any of the ~15 wineries on their route. You can see a complete list of the wineries they visit, as well as the the schedule of the stops, by visiting their website: 290wineshuttle.com. They occasionally update their list of wineries, so keep that in mind if I happen to mention one that is no longer on their list!

How it Works

While you could book day of, it is highly recommended you book your “party” in advance. Remember, you won’t have the bus all to yourself, unless you book a private tour. You can book online or over the phone. I called a few weeks before we were planning to do our Fredericksburg wine tour and booked five tickets on their air conditioned buses.

We got up and ready, ate breakfast and headed out to downtown Fredericksburg to load the shuttle and start our tour. They start tours at 10am, and I believe, we got to the pickup spot at 11am and there was a bus waiting! It was super easy to find and their staff was very friendly. They answered all of our questions and handed us pamphlets to help us know where we would be heading. Being the planner I am, I of course, already had our stops mapped out.

With the basic shuttle passes, you do stop everywhere, but you just get off when you want! And the buses are coming and going every 10 minutes so you shouldn’t have to wait long if you’re ready to head to your next stop. Their last pickup is at 6pm, and they do a great job of keeping tabs on how many of their passengers are at which winery.

Fredericksburg Wine Tour Stops

Grape Creek Winery

Grape Creek is a can’t miss! It was our second stop and we decided to do a seated private tasting ($35 per person) and it was great. We hadn’t made reservations (which I would recommend doing), so we had to wait for about an hour for an opening.

Our tasting started back at the registers, and they poured us a glass of white wine to sip on while we waited for our tasting to begin. From there, we were lead to an upstairs sitting room where we were poured another glass of white wine and just hung out for a bit. When we were mostly done with our white wines, we walked into an intimate dining room space.

They say they let you enjoy the wine tasting at a “leisurely pace” and boy, are they not kidding. We did not feel rushed at all, and I think we were in the tasting room for almost two hours.

Fat Ass Ranch & Winery

I saw a lot of mixed reviews for Fat Ass, but let me tell you, we had a good time. We had their frozen wine and for December, it was pretty chilly, but in the summer it would be the best thing to have!

Also, who could resist taking a photo in front of their winery sign?! They have several other cute photo opportunities at the winery, including selfies with the donkey!

Mendelbaum Cellars

Mendelbaum Cellars was actually our first stop of the day. Unless you’ve heard really great things and want to try their wine, I would skip it. The person taking care of us was super nice and even poured a special wine into the bride-to-be’s diamond shot glass ring!

The part of the venue we were in had live music for a little bit, which was nice. They also had olive oil and bread out for visitors to snack on. We cleansed our pallets with little oyster crackers and enhanced the wine with chocolate chips. Who doesn’t love free snacks!

Other Stops

I’d love if you tried out 4.0 Cellars and let me know how it is! It’s a joint winery with one of the winery’s home bases being in Burleson, Texas, near my hometown! Becker Vineyards and Fiesta Winery were also on my list that we didn’t get to. Also, if you feel like decoding some of my spreadsheet… I’ve included my research on tours and wineries in Fredericksburg in the screenshot above. Google Sheets for the trip planning win! If you have any questions about it, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a message!

Where to Eat

The perfect to place to end a day of wine tours: Otto’s German Bistro! Otto’s was within walking distance of our drop off from the 290 Wine Shuttle, and after a day of drinking was exactly what (and where) we needed it to be! If you can plan for it, I highly recommend reservations. I have twice now waited over an hour and a half to eat here… But my more important recommendation is to get the Duck Schnitzel (pictured above)! Delicious hand-breaded duck breast with duck cracklins and apple mustard lyonnaise sauce served on yummy spätzle! Also pictured are the Old Fashions the bestie and I were working on before our meal.

Where to Stay

There are so many cute places to stay in Fredericksburg, and you should definitely check out Airbnb! Our Airbnb had one bedroom, a pretty comfortable sleeper sofa and an air mattress. If you’re looking for a hotel, see all the hotel options on Hotels.com.

I hope you have a wonderful time on your Fredericksburg wine tour! Be sure and tag me on Facebook or Instagram @TexanTravels if you try out one I’ve suggested!

– Texan Travels

Hi friends! This is one post of my Girls Weekend blog series! Be sure to check out all the great blogs I will post to help plan your own girls weekend! Also, don’t be shy! Let me know if you’ve visited one of these wineries on your Fredericksburg wine tour!