Inwood Estates Winery - Fredericksburg

Open: Year Round

It has been a very long road from the beginning to the release of these one-of-a-kind wines. Dan Gatlin grew up in the retail beverage trade as his family was the owners & operators of the Hasty chain of wine, spirits and convenience stores in Dallas, Texas. His father, Vernon Gatlin, had worked his way up from Depression Era beginnings after Prohibition. After service in WWII, Vernon Gatlin returned to Dallas and established himself as an astute businessman building the A&A Company to 28 stores, and then Hasty to 15 convenience and 11 wine & spirits stores under his ownership. Vernon Gatlin died in 1981 and his wife Virginia passed away in 1988.

Dan Gatlin built his wine skills as a buyer and eventually vice-president of the company. When Hasty was sold, he turned his interest to vineyard research. His
close contact in the 1970s with the California wine industry had allowed him to directly witness the coming-of-age of that industry in a way that not many people were allowed to see in those days. He therefore began the long process of researching whether Texas held any possibilities for fine wine production by establishing one of the first vineyards in the state in 1981 sampling 22 all-vinifera varieties in Denton County, Texas.