Now nearly complete, except for some finishing touches, the tasting room has doubled its seating capacity from 30 to 60 with a row of six-seat, high-top booths now lining the right side of the room across from the reconfigured bar. At that bar, guests can select a flight of four wines—from a list of over 30—ranging from drier reds and whites to an array of fruit and dessert wines.
“I grew up making wine with my dad,” Marek said. “I learned how to make sweet, fruity wines and dessert wines with him. So when I got in the business, I had to take classes to learn how to make whites and reds.”
While he started making wine as a hobby, Marek’s wines have consistently won awards since 2008. This year the Lone Star International Wine Competition handed out five medals to Georgetown Winery, including the Grand Star Award for its Funky Monkey Pineapple wine—one of only eight wines to take that honor out of over 700 entrants—and a wine more in line with the sweet fruit ones he made with his dad.
In those first years after the Mareks decided to make the leap from hobby to business in 2004, the tasting room on the Square shared its space with the production equipment that filled most of the back of the building.
Within a couple of years, demand forced a move to a larger production facility near the Georgetown Airport before a final move to an 18,000-square-foot space in Liberty Hill that it shares with a couple of the Mareks’ other endeavors, Thirsty Mule Winery and Schitz Creek Distillery.
They also have 8 acres of grapes including cabernet sauvignon, chambourcin and lenoir—a dark-skinned grape native to Texas—as part of its mission to use as many grapes from Texas in its production as possible. Georgetown Winery’s main vineyard is in Rockdale, Texas.
Georgetown Winery
715 S. Main St., Georgetown
512-869-8600
https://georgetownwinery.com
Hours: Tue.-Thu. 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Sun. noon-5 p.m., Mon. Closed
