Historic home setting for Avinger Wine Festival

The annual Avinger Wine Festival gets under way Saturday, offering visitors tastes of wine, food, the arts and more. (Submitted photo)
The annual Avinger Wine Festival gets under way Saturday, offering visitors tastes of wine, food, the arts and more. (Submitted photo)

AVINGER, Texas-A relaxed, small-town setting beckons wine lovers Saturday for the annual Avinger Wine Festival, where visitors will enjoy the tastes of wine, food, the arts and more.

With the CRESS Community Foundation and Avinger Area Chamber of Commerce partnering for the event, the wine festival offers a chance to sample Texas wines inside the wine garden. Access to the wine garden is $5. Wine tastings are $1, and wine will also be sold by both the bottle and the glass.

About a dozen wineries will participate, such as Enoch's Stomp from Harleton, Red Road Vineyard from Naples, Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards from Pittsburg and Texas SouthWind Vineyard and Winery from Refugio.

Food vendors will provide a variety of scrumptious treats: barbecue and boudin, egg rolls and chicken wings, gyros and Chicago-style hot dogs, goat cheese and specialty meats, fried catfish and hush puppies and more.

The Avinger Wine Festival acts as a fundraiser for the type of educational support work the CRESS Community Foundation does. "Our mission is to raise funds for scholarship and to do other projects within the community," said Elaine Moulton, a director at CRESS.

The festival site is located where Church Street and Texas Highway 49 meet in this Cass County town southwest of Linden. "The setting is lovely. It's in an old home here in Avinger and it's a historic home," Moulton said. The surrounding grounds near the home will also host the festival.

The Avinger Wine Festival will get going around 10 a.m. and run until 7 p.m. Vendors will provide all sorts of things to peruse and purchase during the day, ranging from gourmet pecans, specialty olive oils, embroidered goods such as wine towels, goat milk soaps, canned goods like pickles and picante sauce to skincare products, homemade bread, toys, dip mixes and more.

"They all have some unique qualities about them. They are appealing to a wide variety of people," Moulton said of vendors on tap to participate. The Texas Master Naturalists will have a booth.

Music throughout the day can be heard on the grounds and in the wine garden itself. The $5 wine garden admission includes a tote bag and wine glass, plus an hourly door prize entry. There's no admission fee for the general festival grounds, so if people don't have an interest in sipping wine they can enjoy that vendor area for free.

Moulton said the Avinger Wine Festival generally has roughly 1,500 visitors.

"This is our sixth annual wine festival," she said.

(More info: AvingerWineFestival.com.)

Upcoming Events