So here's a thing I think about every time I pour a glass of Texas wine: none of this had to happen.
There was no Hill Country wine trail waiting to be discovered. No tasting rooms, no weekend traffic on 290, no bachelorette buses. Fifty years ago, this was ranch country and that was that. Somebody had to ask the question first.
That somebody was Susan Auler.
It started with a cattle trip
Picture 1973. Ed Auler was crossbreeding cattle on the family's Fall Creek ranch, experimenting with French breeds, and figured he ought to go see them in person. A business trip. Cows.
And Susan — this is the part that gets me — innocently suggested that as long as they were over there, maybe they take some time to see the wine regions too.
Twenty-one days later, Ed put it best: they spent three days on French cattle ranches and three weeks in French châteaux, and that was the end of him not caring about wine.
They drove Burgundy, the Rhône, Bordeaux, the Loire. And somewhere in there they started noticing the land looked an awful lot like home.
A quarter acre and a whole lot of nerve
Here's where most people would've gone home with a nice story and a case of Bordeaux.
Instead, they came back and started asking around. Ed sent his ranch foreman out to find someone — anyone — who knew about growing grapes in Texas. Turns out a university research plot was already quietly underway, and the Aulers planted a test patch in a corner of the ranch to see what would happen.
A quarter of an acre. That's it. And by 1979 it had grown to seven and a half.
Ed retired from practicing law and went all in on what Susan called "their wine endeavor." They planted on the west side of Lake Buchanan, about eighty miles northwest of Austin — the first winery in the Texas Hill Country, and to this day the oldest.
Y'all. Sandy loam, brutal summers, late freezes, and zero proof any of it would work. They did it anyway.
The part nobody talks about
Growing the grapes was only half of it. The other half was convincing anyone in America that Texas wine was worth a second look — and that's the part Susan quietly owned.
She traveled the country cultivating chefs, sommeliers, and restaurateurs one by one, putting Fall Creek in front of them and asking them to give it a place on the list. It worked, sort of. But she wanted a bigger lever.
So in 1986, she founded the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival. It rotated between Hill Country wineries in the early years before landing at Austin's Four Seasons, and it paired Texas winemakers with guests from California, France, Germany, Italy, and Australia — plus a group of Texas chefs who happened to be inventing Southwestern cuisine at the same moment.
The Aulers also set out to get the Texas Hill Country recognized as an official American Viticultural Area — which is a fancy way of saying she spent years dragging the paperwork, the perception, and the entire state's reputation uphill so that the rest of us could have somewhere to go on a Saturday.
If you've ever planned a Hill Country girls trip, you're standing on her work. (We've got a whole pile of those trips over at Texas Pour Girl, and honestly, most of them trace back here.)
Fifty years, one Saturday in April
Ed passed away in October 2023. Susan kept going, running Fall Creek with their son Chad.
Then on April 4, 2025 — at the winery's 50th anniversary party, of all places — she announced she was handing it over. Sergio Cuadra, the winemaker who'd been there over a decade, took ownership with an investor group behind him. He's said he's honored to carry forward what the Aulers built. The staff stayed. The commitment to Texas grapes stayed. And Susan, she made clear, isn't going anywhere either.
I love that she did it at the party. Not in a press release. Not quietly. She stood up at fifty years and handed the keys to the next person on purpose, in front of everybody.
Susan's not one to pat herself on the back — but she'll tell you it's heartwarming to look around now and count the wineries. Five hundred-plus of them, on land that grew cattle and peaches when she got here.
She asked one question on a cattle trip. Look what grew out of it.
Go raise a glass
Do this one in person.
The Driftwood tasting room is about 22 miles from downtown Austin, right off FM 1826 — several acres of vines, patios looking out over the Hill Country, and a five-wine flight the winemaker picks himself. There's a Wine Country Inn on the property too, steps from the tasting room, if you want to make a weekend of it. And yes — Salt Lick is right across the road.
If you want the original, the Tow tasting room sits on 400 acres next to the Auler family ranch on Lake Buchanan, about 80 miles northwest of Austin. It's by appointment — call ahead at (325) 379-5361 before you make the drive. It's a haul. It's worth it. That's where the quarter acre was.
Order the Tempranillo. Sit on the patio. Think about a woman on a cattle trip in 1973 saying well, since we're here…
Sip. Savor. Repeat.