**** updated with lists ****

I put the out-of-towners on the maybe list, so if you can switch to the definite side, let me know. I want to start firming things up with the restaurant.

Definites: (current count: 17)
RedWineFan +2
debegone + 2
hokiedevil + 1
Jopo528 +1
ckeilah + 1
UBlink + 1
ThunderThighs
pcurra +1

Maybes
Jopo528 additional guest

Declines
JustPlainJulie + 1
MarkDaSpark
DarkStar11 + 1
scaefferr + 1

Jan 19th, 2013, 6pm

Location: Texas French Bread
http://www.texasfrenchbread.com/

Menu:
F.IRST
Antipasti w/ cured meats, olives, braised cauliflower and roasted buttercup
squash & chili oil

SECOND
Market salad, shaved parm

THIRD
Braised pork shoulder w/ jerusalem artichoke mash
or
Risotto w/ heirloom garlic and shitakes

FOURTH
Butterscotch budino or Hyde Park fudge cake

No specific wine theme for our first gathering.

Wine rules:

- Bring something from your collection you really like, or you've really been wanting to try. It doesn't have to be from Woot.
- One bottle per person
- Price $12-$25 range (with reasonable flexibility)

redwinefan wrote:Starting a thread to see if there is any interest for an Austin wine.woot tasting get together.

I'm thinking mid to late September location to be decided upon later.

We might be interested in making the trip down if it's on the weekend.

justplainjulie wrote:We might be interested in making the trip down if it's on the weekend.

That would be great! I'm sure we can arrange it for a weekend.

I'd be interested in coming up from Houston depending on dates. We're planning a Sonoma trip for around the same time.

There are grandBlinks in Austin. So the Blinks would be interested.

I'm in Austin and I am interested, but I'll be out of town Sept. 13-18. If it doesn't fall on that weekend I would love to join up.

debegone wrote:I'm in Austin and I am interested, but I'll be out of town Sept. 13-18. If it doesn't fall on that weekend I would love to join up.

I'm out of town somewhere around that time as well.

I'm assuming that Saturdays would work best for out-of-towners, right? What if we were to narrow the date to Sat September 29th, or Sat October 6?

Do either of those sound better/worse for everyone?

Cool, I always wanted to go to Austin...seems like a great town. Not sure if it is something we can swing, but we'll keep an eye on the thread.

If Kttest and Cesare are coming the Blinks will be there for sure. If travel works better through Dallas you can ride with us.

kttest wrote:Cool, I always wanted to go to Austin...seems like a great town. Not sure if it is something we can swing, but we'll keep an eye on the thread.

redwinefan wrote:I'm out of town somewhere around that time as well.

I'm assuming that Saturdays would work best for out-of-towners, right? What if we were to narrow the date to Sat September 29th, or Sat October 6?

Do either of those sound better/worse for everyone?

I'll let you know early next week, after I talk with my friend and firm up our trip.

Either date should work for us. I have a couple of friends in the Austin area who would probably be interested in coming as well.

redwinefan wrote:I'm out of town somewhere around that time as well.

I'm assuming that Saturdays would work best for out-of-towners, right? What if we were to narrow the date to Sat September 29th, or Sat October 6?

Do either of those sound better/worse for everyone?

Both of these will work for me.

Oct 6 please! :-)

If it's the 6th add me as a maybe, I really should go back to Austin.

I'd be in for this. But I wouldn't be able to do Oct. 6th.

Good to hear all the interest. Keep it coming, and we can start firming up a date next week or so.

Count me and the wife as "maybes" if it's Oct. 6.

No updates on the gathering, but for those in Austin, I definitely recommend checking out the Twin Liquors 75th anniversary sale. Lots of great wine deals (ends tomorrow!)

Would love to try to make it down if it's on the 6th! If that's the date, put me down as a definite maybe! I just need 2 weeks so I can ask off work

I'm out of town on Oct 6th.

Hey there folks -- are you all going for the 6th? If so, would redwinefan mind updating the title of the thread to make the date jump out to the casual lurker? Thanks!!!!

Add 2 more if it is on October 6th. Between the UBlinks, the JustPlainJulies, and us...this Austin Wine Woot is beginning to look like a Dallas Wine Woot invasion of Austin! HA!

I'm not sure I can commit to the 6th yet. I should know soon. I would like to meet all the Dallas folks though, but we need to make sure some Austin folks can attend as well

Would love to join you, but this fall isn't a possibility. We're looking into visiting the area, San Antonio maybe, in mid-February. I know the weather could be unpredictable, but other than that, what are our chances for a nice time?

ddeuddeg wrote:Would love to join you, but this fall isn't a possibility. We're looking into visiting the area, San Antonio maybe, in mid-February. I know the weather could be unpredictable, but other than that, what are our chances for a nice time?

Usually highs in the mid to low 60s and lows in the mid 40s during Feb in Austin. We get some rain and a few chilly days, but there are plenty of nice days thrown in as well.

Where will you be visiting from? If it is from far away, you might want to do a combined Austin/San Antonio trip. It's about a 90 minute drive between the two.

Sorry I've been slacking on getting this together. I've been distracted with some new work obligations that have screwed up my future schedule.

I'll get going on this today.

redwinefan wrote:Usually highs in the mid to low 60s and lows in the mid 40s during Feb in Austin. We get some rain and a few chilly days, but there are plenty of nice days thrown in as well.

Where will you be visiting from? If it is from far away, you might want to do a combined Austin/San Antonio trip. It's about a 90 minute drive between the two.

From Buffalo. Basically, we're just looking to go somewhere we haven't been before, and with luck, find weather a bit warmer than at home. We had already thought of doing what you suggest. May want to get a hotel in Austin for a day or 2, rather than drive back and forth twice, or make Austin a single day trip.

ddeuddeg wrote:From Buffalo. Basically, we're just looking to go somewhere we haven't been before, and with luck, find weather a bit warmer than at home. We had already thought of doing what you suggest. May want to get a hotel in Austin for a day or 2, rather than drive back and forth twice, or make Austin a single day trip.

You might want to consider stopping in Lockhart (a slight detour on your drive between the two cities) for a Texas BBQ crawl:

http://www.lockhart-tx.org/web98/visitors/bbqcapitaloftexas.asp

Austin also has moved up in the world of Texas BBQ with the addition of now semi-famous Franklins and J Muellers. But Lockhart will give you the real, historic BBQ experience.

Greune (pronounced green), TX is also a nice place to stop between the two cities. It's got some antique shopping, some wine tasting (TX wines), a famous music/dance hall (Greune Hall), a good place for ribs (Gristmill), and a river.

And, there's also Buc-ees, the world's largest convenience store (67,000 sq ft), about half way between the two cities:

http://www.cspnet.com/news/corporate/articles/buc-ees-banks-big-texas-big

As redwinefan says, the weather will be nicer than Burfalo. In addition to San Antonio and Austin and the towns in between there's also Fredericksburg in the Hill Country within a days drive. You've got plenty of time to research options.

ddeuddeg wrote:From Buffalo. Basically, we're just looking to go somewhere we haven't been before, and with luck, find weather a bit warmer than at home. We had already thought of doing what you suggest. May want to get a hotel in Austin for a day or 2, rather than drive back and forth twice, or make Austin a single day trip.

So, is Oct. 6th locked in or still TBD? I'm here in Austin and would like to attend.

hokiedevil wrote:So, is Oct. 6th locked in or still TBD? I'm here in Austin and would like to attend.

Unfortunately, although we had a lot of interest from out of towners for Oct 6, we couldn't get the Austinites on board for that date.

If you are looking for a good wine tasting event to go to in Austin on Oct 6, I can suggest the "Austin Cellar Classic" at Max's Wine Dive:

http://www.austincellarclassic.com/index.php

There will be a lot of wine to taste, and if you pay up for the VIP pass, the quality/price level of the wines they are pouring goes way up.

Let's try to figure out the interest level for a date in early November. Hopefully that isn't too close to the holidays for everyone.

What about Nov 3 or 4th?

That would work for us, I think. Also, we would be bringing 2-3 Austin-area people with us.

November 3 or 4 would probably work for me. Just need a heads up to arrange babysitter etc.

Silly question: Is there a way to "subscribe" to this particular thread and get notifications when there are new comments?

Looks like that would work for me as well.

I've updated the top of this thread, but I'll also post the info below:

Updated info:

I've found a spot to host the first Austin wine.woot gathering. It's a nice, somewhat hidden restaurant in Central Texas called Texas French Bread. For anyone coming in from out of town, this is about a 10 minute drive from downtown Austin.

I spoke with the owner about our group, and he said they'd be happy to have us, and they'd allow us to bring our own wine for tasting.

The end of this year is just proving too crazy schedule wise, and I want to give everyone enough time to lock in their plans to come, so I'm proposing we go ahead and lock in this date and make it happen:

January 19th, 2013. It's a couple of weeks after the holidays, so we should all have had plenty of time to recover.

If you can come, please post your headcount at the bottom of this thread Also, PM me your email so I can start an email list to keep everyone in the loop.

After we have an approx headcount, I'll lock this in with the restaurant, and we can figure out a wine theme.

http://www.texasfrenchbread.com/

I'm in plus one for Jan. 19th!

I love Texas French Bread. I had dinner there just last weekend and they always have a great farm to table menu. And I love the fact that I can always bring my own wine for a $6 corking fee.

redwinefan wrote:I've updated the top of this thread, but I'll also post the info below:

Updated info:

I've found a spot to host the first Austin wine.woot gathering. It's a nice, somewhat hidden restaurant in Central Texas called Texas French Bread. For anyone coming in from out of town, this is about a 10 minute drive from downtown Austin.

I spoke with the owner about our group, and he said they'd be happy to have us, and they'd allow us to bring our own wine for tasting.

The end of this year is just proving too crazy schedule wise, and I want to give everyone enough time to lock in their plans to come, so I'm proposing we go ahead and lock in this date and make it happen:

January 19th, 2013. It's a couple of weeks after the holidays, so we should all have had plenty of time to recover.

If you can come, please post your headcount at the bottom of this thread Also, PM me your email so I can start an email list to keep everyone in the loop.

After we have an approx headcount, I'll lock this in with the restaurant, and we can figure out a wine theme.

http://www.texasfrenchbread.com/

debegone wrote:I'm in plus one for Jan. 19th!

I love Texas French Bread. I had dinner there just last weekend and they always have a great farm to table menu. And I love the fact that I can always bring my own wine for a $6 corking fee.

Great! Please PM me your email when you get a chance so I can keep you in the loop.

I'm in along with my better half. Looking forward to it!