Located in the rolling hills of far north Texas, 4R Ranch provides a beautiful location to relax and enjoy great food and wine while enjoying the fantastic views. Located near Muenster, Texas, the winery sits in a unique geographic location that provides rolling hills and rocky terranean near the Red River, the border between Texas and Oklahoma.
1473 Co Rd 477
Muenster, TX 76252
940-736-3370
Website
Reservation Needed: Yes (as of September 2021)
Tasting Cost: $10.00
Wines: Rose, Roussanne, Reisling, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Red Blend, Hausfray Hooch
Service: 4
Atmosphere: 5
Wines Tasted: 8
Wines: 3.5
Make sure that you have the winery loaded up in your maps app before you leave Muenster. The drive to the winery takes you along several county roads, both paved and unpaved, with some twists and turns, and even a u-turn for us because we through one of the roads must have been a driveway. Once you arrive at the gate, you know that the drive was meant to bring you somewhere unique, away from the crowds.
On your arrival at the ranch, you will follow the signs to the tasting room, which will take you to the "Wind Shed." Their tasting room is named for the wind turbines that are in the area. It is an elegant tasting room high up on the hill, providing you a superb location to taste wines and enjoy the surrounding scenery.
The Wind Shed provides both indoor and outdoor seating options. On the back deck, the design provides you with views in three directions of the ranch. Large fans keep this area cool in the warmer summer months, and the tables offer a great spot to enjoy your wine tasting and a bite to eat.
The inside of the Wind Shed is also quite lovely and would be a great place during the cooler months when sitting outside is not an option, or if you were just trying to hide from the hottest months of summer.
In addition to wine, they have an excellent menu of food items available. We ordered the cheese board to get started while we were taking our flight. The board was nice, with standard cheese board options of cheddar, apples, salami, Triscuits, wheat things, Ritz crackers, Monterey jack, pretzels, black olives, and yummy grainy mustard. It made a nice accompaniment to the wine.
The Brambles Bourbon Blue Cheese & Bacon Burger was delicious. The beef was well seasoned and then topped with shitake mushrooms, bacon onion jam, and blue cheese. This burger had a slightly sweet flavor from the bacon jam, which contrasted with the tang of the blue cheese. The creaminess of the toppings and the fat molecules from the burger really highlighted the Ranch Red, which is what we chose to get a glass of after our tasting.
Wine Rankings
- Ranch Red - $24 a bottle
- 2020 Roussanne - $26 a bottle
- 2018 Zinfandel - $28 a bottle
- Hausfrau Hooch - $22 a bottle
Other Wines Tasted (not rank ordered)
- 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon -$30
- 2018 Sauvignon Blanc - $22
- 2020 Reisling - $24
- 2020 Rose - $20
You can get a 4 wine tasting for $10, so we got one of the white wines and one of the red wines. This gave us a chance to try a real variety of their wines. The tasters came out in little jars with lids so that you could control the pace of your tasting. The tops were really helpful to keep any bugs from trying to get to your wine while you were tasting.
Our favorite from the tasting was the Ranch Red. After we did our tasting, we decided to get a glass of each of these. It has a fruit-forward flavor of black cherry with a smooth finish. This makes an excellent pairing for bor grilled meats and barbeque. It was perfect with the burger that we ordered.
The Hausfrau Hooch is a unique wine. Starting with blackberry wine as the base, the winemaker blends red wines to make a slightly sweet red that is easy drinking wine even in the warmer months in Texas. This is the best seller, and we purchased a bottle to bring more.
The Roussanne was our favorite white wine. It was medium-bodied and had full notes of pear and tropical flavors to it. It was a significant change-up from our usual. We also brought one of these to take home with us to enjoy.
We did get an opportunity to visit with the winemaker Anthony Mosley, who was gracious in sharing some information about the wines and the winery. He was getting ready to pick grapes the next day, which he explained they start at about 11:00 PM and pick through the night. Unfortunately, their vineyards were damaged by the hard freeze that we had in the winter of 2021, so he was getting grapes from the high plains of Texas around the area of Lubbock.
I look forward to going back to 4R Ranch in the future and tasting some of the wines that we did not have the opportunity to taste. 4R Ranch also has a tasing room in McKinney, which we may visit to pick up a few bottles here and there, but the real magic is on the ranch itself.
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