Solaro Estate Winery — Attraction in Texas

Robert Hugh Fritz III founded the Solaro Estate in Dripping Springs on the same property his family bought in 1909 of which he is now a co-owner. One hundred years later Solaro Estate Winery produced its first vintage and today grows the Montepulciano and Barbera varietals on the winery's eight acres and sources grapes from other parts of Texas to make nine additional wines including Tempranillo and an orange Muscat dessert wine, none of which are worth the stellar prices demanded in light of their mediocre to horribly undrinkable quality. There's not a wide division between the two extremes.

We participated in a tasting conducted by the co-owner, Robert Hugh Fritz III who describes himself as a federal prosecutor (not), winery owner (co-owner), wine industry expert (not based on what we tasted on our visit) and Solaro's winemaker (hire someone who knows what they're doing Robert!) The tasting was not worth the $15/person (or even had it been complimentary) and surreal with Fritz claiming to be a federal prosecutor with a "big case" coming up soon in which he bragged he was the government's lead counsel. I found his continual references to his legal prowess (unsupported by the media or attorney rating services) as being odd for a wine tasting. In fact, while an attorney, Robert Fritz is not associated with the U.S. Attorney's Office but rather is an attorney in private practice (Fritz Law Form) in Houston, Texas. Fritz also touted the winery's awards derived from little-known "international" and local events held exclusively within the U.S. only. Taste these poor-quality wines and wonder if the judges were dishonest, inept or all the competing wines were just that bad.

For the $15/person the tasting we each received parsimonious few drops of five wines representative of Solero Estate's best efforts. Fritz struggles with the pronunciation of foreign words and the names of grape varietals, taking great pride in carefully enunciating "Montepulciano" which he had obviously practiced repeatedly. The wines themselves are unbalanced, uniformly mediocre to actually, horribly undrinkable. Bring mouthwash.

Fritz claims he creates his wines using superior techniques to those used in Europe. Regardless, the Montepulciano we purchased upon opening later that evening for a group of French oenophiles displayed an overwhelming aroma reminiscent of cheap nail polish and was extremely acidic on the palate, unbalanced, with no indication of any tannins whatsoever in spite of the winery's claim that this wine is aged in oak casks for twenty-four months. Fritz is apparently not a winemaker extraordinaire after all and should frankly be ashamed to market these wines at all, much less at the stellar prices demanded. No wonder no price list is evident at the winery. Surprise! As the saying goes, there's a fool born every minute and apparently Fritz counts on his overhyped presentations to impress the gullible and separate them from their hard-earned cash.

No crackers or other palate-clearing bites were offered between the wines tasted. One wine was poured (sloshed) directly into the same glass as the wine just sampled without so much as a rinse beforehand.

Upon purchasing a bottle of the Solaro's wine we discovered that Solero offers no discount on the its already overpriced wines for those participating in a tasting. Once fooled shame on me....

Bottom line, skip this mediocre winery and its blowhard co-owner. Spend your time instead visiting a few of the other nearby wineries, distilleries or breweries. You'll be glad you did and so will...

Color me bewildered and confused...I came here last Sunday afternoon after a beautiful hike at Westcave Preserve and thought what a great way to spend a leisurely Sunday afternoon and chose this winery because of the Yelp rating and rave reviews and the close proximity to Westcave. I have to say...not impressed does not even begin to express my dismay and disappointment about my experience here.

Firstly, it is a HUGE turn off for me with any business when it is made immediately apparent that they are just money hungry. This is very obvious in their pathetic tasting where for $10 you only sample 4 wines and the pours they give you are maybe enough to constitute a single sip, so when you do the math, you are paying $2.50 for less than an ounce of wine and Texas winery of the year notwithstanding, these guys are not Napa quality to demand such pricing, but seem to think more highly of their wines than maybe they should imho. The other issue is the tasting list does not have the bottle pricing so you honestly do not know how much a bottle of anything is going for. They do make an effort to upsell their wine club membership which would entitle you to potentially taste the other 4 wines on the tasting menu. However, my biggest issue and what really upset me the most about my experience here was when I got my bill for $60 for a bottle of wine and 2 tastings, I almost fell over! I am a sommelier and have been to many wineries all over the country, let alone several here in Texas, and I have NEVER had a winery still charge me for a tasting fee AFTER I bought a bottle; to add insult to injury after purchasing a very overpriced $38 bottle of their Tempranillo, I would think for $38 they could at least comp me one of their measly tastings, but again, money grubbing attitude was made very apparent. Also, the guy that did our tasting was very robotic and distant and sounded like a broken recording when regurgitating the "tasting profiles" of the four wines. In all honesty, the Tempranillo was the only palatable wine of the four. When we went we were the only people in the tasting room and granted it was 40 or so mins before they were supposed to close. The grounds were also not impressive and in my opinion looked nothing like the pics here on Yelp or on their website, so what is supposed to induce me to return here if not for the wine or the view? Needless to say, I will never be back and have told several of my friends to avoid visiting this highly overpriced and disappointing winery. If this was the Texas Winery of the year, the TX wine industry needs to raise its standards as I have been to several other Hill Country wineries that far exceeds...

The staff was polite and the grounds are nice, but if you don't like sweet reds you should probably stay away. The property looks nice and could probably hold a great party for up to 100, but the bathroom situation needs some reconsiderations. I'd recommend the property for a party, but only if you didn't have to serve their wine. There's probably a really cool wedding venue setup to be had here.

The wine was unique. The only thing that really fit our pallette was the Italian import which technically wasn't on the tasting menu, but a bit overpriced when compared to what I can purchase at the store (since it's not related to the property except that they imported it).

Some suggestions for the property: do something with the men's bathroom, don't know what, but it's currently setup like a public park bathroom 15 dollars for a flight and carefully measuring the pour, I should be trying decent wine. Charge more for premium wine, if you need, but what we tasted would have been overpriced at 10 per tasting. One was actually technically bad. 2 for one if you need to. In general, if you need to make money on tastings then you have a problem with your wine. We bought ten bottles at the next vineyard, so we weren't stingy, just couldnt find something we liked. the tasting menu should actually have what I'm tasting and there should be tasting notes related to what considerations were made for the vintage or year. when I'm tasting at a winery I should be told which vinyards or regions the grapes came from as that's part of the experience. Understanding the differences in the soils from the regions is what the experience is about. I can line up wines for a taste test at any bar. I'd suggest a trip to Sonoma or Paso Robles to get a better feel for how to tweak your experience. it's not uncommon to customize you tasting flights based on the customer, most wineries and vineyards I visit do this based on my tastes and the fact that I prefer certain profiles. if you can't get the red wine quality up you should switch to whites until you can; the reds are objectively disasterous and whites are much more forgiving.

This is just my constructive criticism because I'd like you to succeed as a...