Waldorf Astoria Texas Hill Country will soon announce a celebrity-chef partnership. Photo: IMI Worldwide Properties |
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region. It’ s an area Harmon visited three decades ago, around the time when he was cutting his teeth with Auberge.“ I was scouting around and someone said,‘ Hey, you got to go up and see this town. That Fredericksburg is super cool.’” He made the drive up and agreed— it was pretty cool, it had |
charm. But, as Harmon put it,“ It was still a sleepy town. Its time hadn’ t come yet.”
For Fredericksburg, and surrounding areas, the time is now. Harmon frames it as almost the second coming of Napa Valley, something he says after revisiting the area years later with his business partner.
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“ I have the benefit of seeing many years of development in California, in Napa Valley. There was a time there, in the early 1980s, when it was just beginning to be recognized as a wine destination,” he said, alluding to such wineries as Chateau Montelena, winner of that’ 76“ Judgment of Paris,” |
and allure found in the old stone buildings that dot the landscape.“ I’ m now seeing the parallels of what I think is going to be the growth of Texas Wine Country. It’ s starting to really come into its own.”( Wine Spectator, the holy bible of wine, recently rated some of the area wines in the 90s and above.) |