Famed for its German heritage and rolling hills, Texas Hill Country is best known for its wine. Considered the region’s crown jewel, Fredericksburg started with just three wineries in the 1970s and has since blossomed, experiencing one of its most significant booms in tourism over the last five years, says Brady Closson, the CEO of Fredericksburg Convention and Visitor Bureau. Today, the city has more than 80 wineries and generates the second-highest revenue in wine tourism dollars in the country, falling just behind California’s Napa Valley, Closson adds. But with more than 3 million people visiting each year and its designation as the second-most visited wine destination in the U.S., residents are feeling the effects. Locals say some visitors are drinking a little too much while visiting wine country.
Around 60 percent of Fredericksburg’s arrests each year are due to public intoxication and DWI, or driving while intoxicated, according to the Fredericksburg Police Department, which has tracked a steady rise in alcohol-related arrests since 2019. Police now rank those offenses as their top priority, and even the Fredericksburg City Council is looking to address some of the issues tied to the city’s alcohol-fueled tourism boom, Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post reports.
The police department is working with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) to rein in problematic drinking at local establishments. During an hour-long public discussion on Monday, May 12, more than a dozen residents, including business owners, discussed issues with alcohol consumption — concerns that people have been overserved, drugged, and assaulted at bars. Residents made suggestions, including restricting open containers on Main Street, shortening bar hours, increasing police presence, implementing stricter TABC laws, and offering more food options along Highway 290, the nearby stretch of highway home to many of the larger wineries. “A lot of these young girls will hop on the buses, and they go all day — winery to winery — and they don’t eat anything,” says Melissa Humphries, who owns two wine-focused bars in town.
Humphries, who co-owns Main Street’s Champagne bar Six Twists and wine and chocolate bar Ocotillo, with her husband Bobby, says Fredericksburg experienced a noticeable shift in the type of tourists it attracted starting in 2020, following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of Texas shut down and suffered the consequences, putting many businesses at a standstill, but Fredericksburg, a rural town known for its bed and breakfast hotels, thrived, Closson and Humphries say. Tourists from nearby areas like Austin and Houston used Fredericksburg as a getaway, some staying a weekend to a few days, while others stayed for weeks on end to escape the monotony of their homes while social distancing.
As tourism climbed, so did incidents of public intoxication, which worried business owners, trying to uphold a certain decorum that exudes more Napa Valley, less Austin’s Sixth Street, Closson says. “A couple of times we’ve gone out in the morning, and like, yeah, there’s blood on the sidewalk. Where did that come from?” Humphries says, and it’s not surprising to see nice cars parked on the side of the road. “You know they didn’t break down,” a resident says. “They got arrested.”
Many have pointed to businesses like Brooke’s Bubble Bar for contributing to disruptive behavior. The hard-to-miss pink wine tour company on Fredericksburg’s historic Main Street has earned a reputation for its droves of bright pink limos, in which it packs in rowdy bands of bachelorettes and groups of partying women who unleash on the city in all their pink and glittery glory. Business owners say some of Brooke’s patrons have returned to Main Street so drunk, they’ve damaged local businesses, harassed management, and even stolen items, including curtains and sconces, taken from their walls. Brooke’s did not immediately respond to Eater’s requests for comment.
With high-end hotels preparing to plant their flags downtown, some residents fear unchecked tourism could undermine the small-town charm rooted in German traditions and entrepreneurial spirit. These residents want to curb the behavior before the next wave of development reshapes Fredericksburg: Kimpton Hotels and Houston-based DC Partners, the company behind Thompson hotels in Houston and San Antonio, plan to open a 210-room luxury hotel in the middle of Fredericksburg in 2027. The Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts also plans to open its Hill Country location in 2027, which will feature 60 hotel rooms, 37 multi-bedroom resort villas, 50 private residences, an 11,000-square-foot spa, two pools, and five dining establishments, according to a release.
Still, Humphries says residents want to maintain Fredericksburg’s hospitable, inviting culture without losing the values of its residents and business owners. “I think it’s just maybe some growing pains. We’re finding our identity,” Humphries says, noting that many publications have tried to quantify Fredericksburg’s growth, culture, and atmosphere. In February 2020, just a month before COVID-19’s infamous shutdown, Texas Monthly deemed Fredericksburg “the new Aspen.” Some locals took the moniker with pride. Others cringed. “Now, they’re like, ‘I think we’d rather be Aspen than Nashville.’”
Though wineries are a prominent driver of tourism, Closson says there’s hope for Fredericksburg to be more intentional about its message, so it’s not perceived that the only thing visitors can do there is drink. It’s not because they don’t want tasting rooms or opportunities to drink in the historic district of Downtown Fredericksburg. “But do you want three or four blocks of just tasting rooms, or is it, we agree that a mix is probably best for all parties?” he says.
Jared Broach, co-owner of Charleston Taylor Estate, a winery in nearby Johnson City, says some businesses are fueling the problem by being too lenient and giving in to gimmicks to attract tourists. “The wine industry is so economy-based that it ebbs and flows, so what happens is some of these wineries get too desperate,” Broach says. “They’ll welcome in groups, offer huge discounts on tastings, and then you’ll have people throwing up in bathrooms, and issues where in Napa Valley, [tourists] would be in jail.” Most wineries are trying to offer a more upscale, educational, yet welcoming atmosphere for wine enthusiasts and newcomers while also fighting the harmful stereotype that “Texans drink shitty wine and beer.”
“We’re trying to move that wine journey to a Napa level,” he says.
