For most people, when life gives them lemons, they make lemonade. When life gave Patrick and Karen Hale, co-owners of En Gedi Winery, grapes, the couple began their journey to make fine wine in Texas.
What first began as a shot in the dark in 2013 has become a bustling and ever-growing vineyard built on love, hope, and faith with locations in Jones Prairie and Calvert.
“We were moving from Houston and we had this land out in Milam County,” Patrick says. “We were trying to decide what to do with the land, so we decided to plant grapes, since that was a big thing at the time, and so we planted our vineyard with no intentions of ever having a winery but, as time went on, we decided we needed to start one.”
En Gedi Vineyards currently has an outdoor tasting room, about a mile of walking trails with benches and lakes, and tours of the vineyards at their Jones Prairie vineyard location. At the Calvert location, there is a tasting room, which has become a hub for most of the locals, and tours of the bottling area.
“The trails are nice because you can take your glass of w
ine and walk through the woods and commune with nature,” Patrick says. “The ponds give the children something to do while the parents relax.”
As of right now, En Gedi offers ten different kinds of wine, with an 11th on the way. From whites to Sangiovese and sangrias, En Gedi has wines to satisfy a wide variety of palates. Some of their most popular wines now are their Texas Tornado and the En Gedi Vineyards Sangria, though the popular wines tend to change depending on what people want.
“We have our whites, like A Walk In the Woods, named for walking through the woods at the vineyard, and the sweetest white we have is our Blanc Berry, which has strawberry and kiwi added to it,” Patrick says. “One of our rosés, The Bluest Eyes of Texas, has blueberry added to it for a strong blueberry [aroma].”
The Hales chose the name “En Gedi” because of its religious significance in the Bible — the En Gedi was an oasis along the Dead Sea where David hid from Saul. Since the Hales saw the land here as their own oasis away from Houston, the two chose the name as a symbol of their faith and their mission to show how God has helped them.
“Our real purpose is to tell people what God has done for us,” Patrick says. “I’ve seen three miracles out here.”
The first miracle was when they first started planting grapes. Neither knew how to take care of or grow grapes so they weren’t sure what would happen, Patrick says. After two weeks passed with no results, the Hales prayed and the next day, the fields were starting to sprout and grow.
“That might not sound like
a coincidence but the next one couldn’t have been,” Patrick says. “We were going to have a freeze and a freeze can be devastating on grapes, so I asked all our friends and customers to pray for us.”
Patrick remembers someone telling him that someone else might really need the freeze set to come through Calvert. To that, Patrick says, “Well, pray that they get one and pray that I don’t.” The next morning, it’s white as snow outside and Patrick looks out at their vineyard blocks, each separated by several hundred yards, and all three are as green as can be.
“The third miracle occurred last year when we got hit by hail,” Patrick says. “It devastated us and there was nothing left of the grapes; we prayed we didn’t have a bad year and we ended up with such an abundance of stock that I had to buy new tanks to hold it all.”
En Gedi Vineyards is continuing to sell wine through curbside pickups in both locations. For more information on En Gedi and their wines, visit www.engedivineyardoftexas.com.
