Woke up early in the morning and started driving towards Cedar Park. It was going to be roughly a two hours drive but thru some of the most beautiful parts of Texas. Yes, Texas has some really beautiful hilly parts to it. However, I was slightly distracted because the person I was going to meet – Bob Hart – who I met back in 1995 had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I was not sure what to expect.

Three decades back, I was in development and Bob was in IT and let’s just say, Bob had his hands full trying to keep us disciplined from hacking into all sorts of things. And that is when we were not busy whacking away the main network cord with a sharp left jab of a ping pong shot (courtesy Vasu). Yes, in those days of start ups, we thought nothing of putting the ping pong table right in the muffle of the network room!!

Coming back to the trip, I might as well have enjoyed the beauty that Texas has to offer. Cancer surely has taken a great toll on Bob – visually thirty pounds for sure – but has not broken his spirit one bit! If anything that sharp sense of acerbic humor has become even sharper. Sure he had late stage cancer. Sure they had to cut him up. And sure that has not eliminated all the malignant cells. With the result that he has to go thru – hold your breath – six long months of chemotherapy to beat back those cells. Every session of chemo is worse than the previous one – I can only believe how painful the journey is going to be for Bob.

But, I tell you, that is one guy ready for the journey. He taught me about the disease and details of his treatment plan more than most doctors would probably tell me. We had great laughter and caught up on our good old friends.

I wish I could hold up guys like Bob to the whole world to see what true fighting spirit is all about. Especially me – when I complain about the smallest things in life!

After posting pictures from the first two vineyards, I started getting recommendations from Facebook friends on a couple more to try. The first suggestion came from Lynette and Ted. I had enough time to drop Sharmila at the hotel (she needed to get ready for the wedding) and go for another wine tasting. The drive to Chisholm Trail Winery was a little scary. First the clouds became very dark and thick (see the previous post). And the small road off the highway that I had to take for nearly three miles went thru quite a few low areas. There was one part where I had to drive thru water. I was a little worried of getting caught on my way back with rising waters. If you did not know, Texas is going thru some terrible flooding right now.

It did not feel any better when I realized that I was the only customer at the winery. Fortunately, the rains did not come thru but I always had an eye to the outside as I tasted some wines. Coming back to wines, CTW ambience was nowhere close the previous two wineries. But, they had two wines that I really liked. The first one is a mix of three varietals – Barbera grown in south Texas and the other two from California – so that does not count as Texas wine!!

But the Lone Wolf (Lenoir varietal) was pretty good. Give it a try if you are nearby the Fredericksburg area. Made great friends with Dotty – see picture – who moved into this area from south of San Antonio area. She is relatively new to the industry but I was impressed how she knew the details of the history of the Lenoir grapes.

These grapes originally were grown in the Georgia and South Carolina areas – going back almost three to four centuries. However, south Texas was where it was grown more prolifically. In the 1900s (I think), when the French industry was brought to its knees due to blight, Lenoir plants were taken to France and grafted on the local plants as a solution. This particular varietal somehow can resist a lot more diseases than other varietals can.

Now there is one point on which Dotty and I differed. She thought Munson was the guy who actually came up with the solution for the French industry. I was aware of Munson’s fame as one of the best wine growers in Texas but I am not very sure of his contribution to the French blight solution. Need to do some research.

But that is neither here nor there. The important part is that this age, Dotty entered a new industry and had diligently studied up her stuff. So, I asked her to take a picture with me where she would hold the bottle I bought and I would do the customary pose 🙂

Grape Creek Vineyards.
2014 Bellissimo

Off to Texas – but in a very different part of Texas than we have ever been – near Fredericksburg. Usually you will not find me in any wedding parties – just the prospect of having to wear good clothes or formal clothes is enough to scare me away. But this is one is between two exceptional kids – Shruthi and Hank. Both of them are our family favorites.