Totally Texas: Pedernales Cellars winery opens in Stonewall

 new winery has opened in the Hill Country.

Pedernales Cellars is located at 2916 Upper Albert Road, Stonewall, across the street from Rose Hill Manor.

“Our philosophy is to focus on what we can do really well,” owner Fredrik Osterberg said. “So we are growing a lot of warm-weather grapes.”

The list includes tempranillo, monastrell (aka mourvèdre) and garnacha (aka grenache).

The wines are available at the winery as well as a few restaurants in the Fredericksburg area, including Navajo Grill and Cabernet Grill.

Don't except copies of what California or France produces, Osterberg said.

“Great wine should reflect its origin,” he said. “We do Hill Country wines and are proud of that.”

The current lineup of wines features a tempranillo, a cabernet sauvignon, a viognier and the Family Reserve, which Osterberg called “our proprietary blend.”

All of them are available at the tasting room, which is open 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Walk-in visitors are welcome and can tour the winery's storage facility, which has been built into Gingerbread Hill.

“It is the largest underground barrel room in Texas,” Osterberg said.

That was built for several reasons, he explained. The hillside offers stable temperatures, so the wine will not be disturbed by outside weather fluctuations. It's also more environmentally friendly because it doesn't need to be heated or cooled.

Plus, as the winery expands, plans call for a second story, which will allow for gravity-flow winemaking.

Pedernales Cellars' winemaker and co-founder, David Kuhlken, studied viticulture at the University of California-Davis. His family has been in the grape-growing business since the early 1990s.