Girls’ Wine Trip To Fredericksburg

A few months ago, my friend Kathleen texted a group of mom friends in my neighborhood. “Should we plan an overnight trip to Fredericksburg in the fall?” Yes and yes! She booked an airbnb and we found a weekend in November when we could enjoy a 24-hour getaway to Texas wine country.

I hadn’t been out to Fredericksburg in nearly 5 years! My husband went shortly after the pandemic and said it kind of felt sad, like lots of business were closed and boarded up and it felt sleepy and empty. But that wasn’t the case in fall 2023; Fredericksburg was booming! Airbnb prices were high (haha) and the downtown streets were packed and reservations were hard to get. Three cheers for tourism being back in full swing!

We carpooled to Fredericksburg early Saturday afternoon.

I told these four to stop and turn around while we were walking in so I could snap a picture of them. Aren’t my friends beautiful?

Signor Vineyards was perfect. There was a wine pick-up event happening for wine club members, so it was pretty packed on this beautiful Saturday afternoon in November.

But there’s a “wine barn” where you can purchase bottles and glasses to enjoy on the grassy lawn. They even had a musician providing live music! It was great.

We sipped wine, we talked, we noticed all the people who had brought young children with them and we expressed how thankful we all were to be carrying on full conversations instead of running after toddlers. 😉

There’s a cute little shop at Signor Vineyards that has a bunch of curated goods + bites. Carolyn went inside and got a bunch of little snacky things like ^ this giant cookie, truffled potato chips, and pesto pasta salad. Yum.

Like most (all?) Fredericksburg wineries, the majority of the grapes at Signor are grown in the Lubbock-area of west Texas. It was fun to sample some Texas grapes over the weekend!

Just look at these moms…who are not chasing around those 13 children while they simultaneously try to have a conversation. Ha! Y’all, here’s the thing about making friends at this stage in life. It’s actually easier than it’s ever been (well, except for maybe college because you’re literally living/rooming/eating/doing every bit of life with like-minded people at that age), but even thought it’s easy to make connections, it’s also really easy for the relationships to stay superficial.

I can make a new connection almost every day at the playground, swim lessons, or just riding bikes with my littles around the neighborhood…but it’s really hard to actually sit and talk and hang out and enjoy “adult” conversations with my mom friends. Why? Because the only time we see each other is when we’re all watching kids!

We’ve had to be really intentional about setting up times to hang out without kids (random Wednesday night living room hangs, coffee dates, or one of us randomly texting a few people and saying, “hey, I have the house to myself this evening! Want to come over for gin and tonics?”

And so I was really thankful when Kathleen decided to initiate this. And the fun thing about getting away for an overnight trip (or a day trip, for that matter!) is that you realize how important it is and you start craving more of those connections. We’re already planning our next hang out.

Courtney made a late lunch reservation for us at Vaudeville. It was adorable! I went with the seafood gumbo for my entree and it was excellent.

We spent the afternoon walking around and shopping in downtown Fredericksburg. (And I have no pictures of this part of the afternoon!) Really, I was so pleasantly surprised with how many fun shops there were that were absolutely bustling with activity. Fredericksburg is alive and well, y’all!

After shopping, we were all ready for more wine! We went to the most beautiful little spot called The Resort At Fredericksburg (recommended to us by the store owner at a children’s boutique we were in).  They actually have tiny houses you can rent to stay in overnight, but we went straight to the wine tasting space called The Edge. It overlooked ^ this view and featured wines from English Newsom Cellars.

Cheers to us!

We did a 6-flight wine tasting here, which was a very fun way to get to try a wide selection of Texas grapes.

We actually had the intention of checking in to the airbnb and cooking a simple dinner at home while we enjoyed a few bottles of wine, but we were having fun here…and they had food available, so we just ordered dinner at The Edge! It was medium…not the greatest food of my life, but it was still good! Next time, we all agreed that we’ll make sure we book lunch, dinner, AND brunch reservations far in advance because everything was so crowded.

We got a few bottles of wine to bring home from English Newsom, stopped by a grocery store for a few snacks, and went back to our airbnb to enjoy the evening in (so no one had to worry about being the DD!). And then got a full night of sleep!

Good morning! We got up, packed up our stuff, and headed out for some coffee. There was a pretty long wait at our brunch spot, so we walked next door to Sunday Supply to enjoy some coffee outdoors while we waited.

Coffee + two mini sausage kolache for me. It was a beautiful morning!

We picked HILL & VINE because a) one of us had been here back when it was owned by previous management and it was good, and b) they don’t take reservations…and we hadn’t made any, so that worked out well! But since it was daylight savings fall back weekend, everyone was up early and the queue was very long! They said 1.5 hours for a table, but it ended up being closer to just an hour.

Anyway, I’ll just reiterate: if you’re planning a girls’ weekend in Fredericksburg, make all your reservations (even breakfast!) in advance, if possible! And if you didn’t make a res, do what we did and go to HILL & VINE and just enjoy some coffee next door while you wait. 😉

A frosted cinnamon roll with orange glaze for the table? Yes please!

Enjoying our lazy Sunday morning brunch.

I got this yummy skillet with grits, pork, fried egg, and avocado crema. It was delicious!

We drove back to Austin that afternoon to get all of our ducks in a row before the work week started. I am SO glad we did this trip. It was short, it was sweet, and it was exactly what we all needed. I really love these girlfriends. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by to read! Xo.