Urban Wine
Hot new winery set to open in funky South Austin space
Visiting wineries is the epitome of elegance. It’s easy to conjure fairy tale images of royalty while enveloped in the romance of walking rows of fragrant grapevines as you approach the palatial château to the tasting room. But a soon-to-open urban winery, The Infinite Monkey Theorem, throws that stereotype out the window. It’s fun. It’s spirited. It’s more likely to catch a show at Mohawk than at the Long Center.
You won’t find any vines or pretense at this new Austin winery. It’s taking over a former auto repair shop just off of South Congress Avenue (121 Pickle Rd.), and the owners are busily sweeping out rusty car parts to make room for wine tanks and tagging the walls with graffiti. The funky winery will have private tastings in August and aims to officially open in late September with a kick-ass party complete with tours, drink specials, art features and live music.
Urban wineries aren’t a new thing. This isn’t even the first urban winery in Austin (that distinction goes to The Austin Winery). In fact, it’s not even the first Infinite Monkey Theorem urban winery. Nope. This is the second location for the Denver-based winery, which opened in 2008.
Husband and wife team Aaron and Meredith Berman moved from Denver to open the new Austin location and serve as the chief financial officer and la grande dame of wine operations, respectively. The intrepid couple followed a lust for adventure and passion for wine to settle into new digs with their two dogs and kids (the goat kind of kids), in a “tiny house” in the same neighborhood as the winery.
The Austin incarnation of The Infinite Monkey Theorem will make wine the same way as the original Denver winery. It will ship in grapes from the Texas High Plains to the facility in Austin where owner and winemaker, Ben Parsons, will make the preliminary batches of wine. The Bermans will be his trusty assistants and continue the longer processes throughout the year. They anticipate cranking out 2,500 cases of wine this year for the first harvest.
Visitors to the Infinite Monkey Theorem tasting room can sample and buy well-known wine varieties like Cabernet, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Malbec and even Rosé made with Texas-grown grapes. Initially, the Texas Rosé will be the only locally made wine, with the rest of the wine coming from Denver. The winery will give birth to Texas white wines about six-eight months after this year’s harvest.
The winery tasting room will have six wines on tap, four bottled wines, and five wines in cans, including canned pear cider. Wine in cans? Hell yeah! Take it to the lake, the pool, the skate park or anywhere glass isn’t welcome. You can even shotgun these 8-ounce bad boys. (CultureMap does not condone chugging a third of a bottle of wine, but what you do on your own time is your business.)
Infinite Monkey Theorem wine is available in local stores and on tap at various restaurants and bars around Austin. A complete list of places to find the wine and dates for special events and the grand opening party are available on the winery’s Facebook page.
And that's what an Asian-inspired pizza looks like.Photo courtesy of Sterrato Italian Specialties