Cabernet Grill at Cotton Gin Village – Your Texas Food and Wine Country Destination
Ever imagine taking a road trip for a gourmet wine country dinner and topping it off with a romantic stay in a rustic B&B? If this sounds like something for our West Coast neighbors and not available to Houstonians, think again.
Under four hours west from Houston is Fredericksburg’s wine country destination restaurant, Cabernet Grill. This year, Chef Ross Burtwell’s restaurant became one of only seven restaurants in Texas chosen for the prestigious 100 Best Wine Restaurants list by Wine Enthusiast Magazine. This list recognizes establishments across the nation that represent the most dynamic experiences in wine-focused dining.
Fundamentally, what makes the Cabernet Grill stand out from its peers is that it gained this recognition by featuring Burtwell’s Texas-centric gourmet cuisine supported by more than 115 different Texas wines with a stock of more than 1,200 bottles in the restaurant’s all-Texas inventory. The Cabernet Grill also offers seven 19th-century luxury log cabins within the ivy-covered walls of the adjacent Cotton Gin Village, providing elegantly private bed-and-breakfast lodging in the heart of the Texas wine country.
According to Burtwell, “My involvement in Cabernet Grill started in the early 2000s through associates of mine when I was working in Bandera. They had me come over to evaluate the setup and I simply fell in love with it. It was a gorgeous property with a restaurant surrounded by a village of rustic cabins set in the middle of the Texas wine country. What’s not to love?”
Burtwell saw a vision for a gourmet local-cuisine restaurant, a growing association with local wineries in the Hill Country and around the state, and a luxury B&B opportunity. What the Cabernet Grill offers is a rarity. Many restaurants present a fine “locavore” menu with many local food offerings but revert to a West Coast or Euro-centric wine program. Cabernet Grill is the complete “locavore-locapour” wine country experience.
“What we offer at Cabernet Grill is laid-back luxury,” says Burtwell. “A comfortably casual environment with upscale fine-dining offerings. We want people to try some things that they may not have tried before in terms of Texas food and wine combinations.”
Some of Burtwell’s offerings are:
Lobster Topped Chicken-Fried Certified Angus Beef Ribeye with green chili cream gravy accompanied with a Texas Tempranillo or Texas wine flight,
Sticky Coconut Crusted Texas Shrimp tossed with five pepper glace paired with a Texas Viognier or Roussanne,
Frozen Adventure Flight—a preset assortment of five petite scoops of his eclectic house-made ice creams/sorbets paired with Texas Muscat Canelli.
Much of the credit for the all-Texas wine program goes to Wine Director Elizabeth Rodriguez who joined forces with Burtwell in 2005. She has been instrumental in selecting wines for the restaurant’s list, which currently represents 40 different Texas wineries, some going back over 15 vintages. While Rodriguez quietly acknowledges her hard work building the wine list, she also gives credit to Burtwell.
“Chef Burtwell fully supports all I do,” she says, “including our extensive staff training, including our weekly activities like blind tastings, aroma workshops, Texas vs. The World tastings, winery/vineyard field trips, food and wine pairings and in-house “meet the winemaker” sessions. We have tried to craft Cabernet Grill’s wine program where servers know the wines and all of the new Texas grape varieties from first-hand experience.”
Plan your road trip today. The Cabernet Grill Restaurant at Cotton Gin Village is open for dinner 5pm to close on Tuesdays through Saturdays and is located at 2805 S. State Highway 16 on the southern limits of Fredericksburg. The cabins are for daily rental and Burwell offers them a hot picnic basket breakfast daily. For more information and reservations, see www.cottonginlodging.com. For more on Burtwell’s recipes, check out his cookbook at www.cabernetgrill.com/cookbook.html.
You can also follow Cabernet Grill on Facebook www.facebook.com/CabernetGrill, Instagram www.instagram.com/cabernetgrill @CabernetGrill and Twitter www.twitter.com/CabernetGrill @CabernetGrill.
P.S. If you want to see Russ’s recent Texas wine selections available in the greater Houston area, click link to check the Houston Chronicle (Lone Star bottles to try for Texas Wine Month).
