Donna Freeman, owner of Briar Creek Vineyard with her husband, Don, is framed in a mirror on the wall of the tasting room adjacent to historic photos depicting East Texas agriculture on Wednesday in the vineyard tasting room in rural Whitehouse. Andrew D. Brosig/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Don and Donna Freeman fell in love with wine and wineries when he trained as a U.S. Navy physician in California in the 1970s. The newly married couple would spend weekends in nearby Napa Valley, sampling wines, learning about viticulture and sensing the bond with the land and the seasons.

Years later – after moving home to Texas and after raising a family – that love blossomed into Briar Creek Vineyards, a farm and winery bottling its own blended sunshine in Whitehouse.

“We loved the whole process – the landscaping, the growing, everything,” Mrs. Freeman said. “It’s a lot of work, more work than I imagined.”

But all that work – and the “grapes that God gives us” – produces wine that makes glad the heart of man, to quote the psalmist.

 

FESTIVAL

Briar Creek Vineyards is just one of the wineries slated to be at the Piney Woods Wine Festival, which takes place Friday and Saturday at its new location, Picker’s Pavilion in Lindale. In prior years, the festival was held in Mount Vernon.

Wineries from around the region, along with vendors and live music, will be on hand from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday and from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. Admission is $5 and wine tastings are $1.

“We were incredibly blessed to have the festival in Lindale,” said Seong MacLaren, downtown development and tourism director. “This is the festival’s sixth year and it’s already one of the largest in the state. They decided last year that the festival needed to grow and have more space, so Lindale was chosen because it was more centrally located and more accessible.”

Walt Wilkins, as well as Crystal and Will Yates, will headline the live music at the festival. Other artists include Jon Christopher Davis, Kylie Ray Harris and Bo Brumble.

Tye Phelps, owner of the new Lindale restaurant and music venue, Love and War in Texas (scheduled to open later this summer), has helped bring in talent, Ms. MacLaren said.

“With his other (Love and War in Texas) restaurant locations, Tye has so many connections with the stars,” she said. “We’re excited to bring them in. We just want to extend some Lindale hospitality.”

Last year’s Piney Woods Wine Festival drew about 2,000 visitors to Mount Vernon. But because Lindale’s annual rodeo is slated for the same weekend and the nearby Texas Rose Horse Park has a show jumping event as well, Lindale officials think the wine festival could draw as many as 5,000 this year.

 

BRIAR CREEK

Donna Freeman doesn’t see the winery she operates with her husband, a local physician, expanding much. It’s a boutique winery, producing about 300 cases per year from 2.5 acres of vines.

There’s value in starting small – and staying small, she said.

“This way, we can do everything by hand,” she said.

The couple particularly loves blending the wines themselves.

“Blending is all about trial and error,” she explained. “You taste and you decide what goes together. We’re not wine snobs; wine is about what tastes good to you. So really, this is the fun part for us.”

Briar Creek bottles a “Texas Two-Step,” which is a blend of cabernet sauvignon and syrah grapes. It has a “Trio,” made from Sangiovese grapes, with some syrah and zinfandel added; there’s the “Sweetbriar Red and Rose,” a slightly sweetened red zinfandel with a fruity finish. And finally there’s a chardonnay she describes as “a slightly orange blossom fragrance added to a fruit-forward white classic.”

In addition to the Wine Festival, Briar Creek wines are available at area liquor stores, FRESH, some Brookshire’s locations and by the bottle at Juls and Cork restaurants.

 

COMMUNITY

There’s something unique about the Piney Woods Wine Festival, and indeed all of the wineries along the Piney Woods Wine Trail, the sponsor of the event. It’s a spirit of cooperation and community, Ms. Freeman explained.

In fact, that spirit helped bring Briar Creek into existence.

“We couldn’t have done what we did without (Kiepersol Estate founder) Pierre de Wet,” she said. “He encouraged us to try it.”

When the first Briar Creek grapes came in, the Freemans used Kiepersol’s equipment to crush and separate the fruit.

“I did the processing, but with their equipment and under their supervision,” Ms. Freeman. “That’s the kind of friends they are.”

De Wet helped design Briar Creek’s tasting room, which is open from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturdays for tastings and tours.

De Wet passed away in January. Ms. Freeman describes that as a great loss to the area and in particular to the region’s wineries.

“All of the wineries around here are like a family,” she said. “Everyone is so supportive and encouraging of each other. We don’t see this as a competition; for us, it’s the more the merrier.”

 

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