The Turtle Creek Olives and Vines tasting room is a gem of downtown Kerrville, but what makes this place truly special is this historical building with an incredible past and the tight-knit family who will help carry this business into the future.
“We began by moving here from Houston in 2015 and we thought we were just going to retire and golf” Sue recalls. “We were here for a few months and found this beautiful property out on Lower Turtle Creek and our brains just started going haywire thinking about everything that could happen there; all the possibilities. We purchased the property we decided we had been on a beautiful hiking trip in Tuscany from Cinque Terra, town to town, and we thought; this kind of looks like the hill country. So we thought why don’t we just try to grow olives? It didn’t have anything to do with vines at first, Dan has an agricultural degree from A&M, and he’s always wanted to do something with his hands in the dirt. He loves to tank around in the dirt so he said would you like a few vines? I thought, oh how about four? The next week there were 400 vines on the driveway! We were quickly putting this test plot of vines and they did beautifully, and the olives did horribly.”
“The varieties we’ve planted are merlot, cabernet, and a word I always like to hear, montepulciano” Dan says. “We have a sweet spot for that fruit and I’m so proud of it it’s making a great wine.”
“We started out with a collaboration with our winemaking, but now we’re at the point where we have our own estate wines. We’re growing our own wine, harvesting our own grapes, and then making our wine” says Sue. “Our kids started coming out to visit and fell in love with the area. They decided to move here as well, so we offered them jobs.”
“It’s wonderful it’s you know; you see them grow and now we’re seeing the fruit and the maturing of the vines and then from there into here. It’s very fulfilling” says Kyle, the vineyard and wine manager at Turtle Creek Olives and Vines.
The wine club is a beautiful space, with a pool table and pinball machines. There are parties every month for our Wine Club members, and what makes it unique is that we have a huge selection of wine and champagne from around the world.