Texas Hill Country is the kind of place where cowboys and sommeliers meet

From Canoe News, October 30, 2008...

The Texas Hill Country, where tiny towns dot a landscape of wildflowers and cedar trees, is the kind of place where cowboys and sommeliers meet. Sometimes literally.

Dude ranches and country dance halls sit alongside wineries and haute cuisine. A hard morning on horseback can be followed by an afternoon of wine and cheese. And nobody minds a bit.

Ask Brandon Stowe. The 24-year-old in cowboy boots was swirling and sipping samples of wine here recently while in town for a wedding, but he and his hunting buddies often stop at a winery to pick up their favourite vintage at the end a day of hunting in the Hill Country.

"It's hard to imagine six guys who have been hunting all day going to a winery, but we do," he said, glass in hand in the cellar-like tasting room of the Torre di Pietra winery.

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