Rebecca Caroline, a new tasting room devoted entirely to Texas-grown traditional method sparkling wine, opened June 30 inside the historic Hye Post Office along the Highway 290 Wine Trail. It’s the first stop on the trail built solely around Texas sparkling, and it comes from William Chris Wine Company, the Hye producer that has spent close to two decades making the case for Texas fruit.

The name is a family one. Rebecca Caroline draws from the middle names of June Rebecca and Tess Caroline, daughters of William Chris founders Chris and Katharine Brundrett. The sparkling program behind it goes back to 2013, when William Chris made some of its first traditional method bottles. What was a side project then has its own address now.

That address does a lot of the work. The Hye Post Office is one of the more recognizable buildings in the Hill Country, and the restoration kept its original post office boxes on display inside the tasting room. The building carries a presidential footnote too. Lyndon Johnson mailed his first letter here at age four, and on November 3, 1965, he came back to swear in Lawrence F. O’Brien as U.S. Postmaster General on the same floor. The post office was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark the following year.

The wines are made the long way. Traditional method, the same labor-intensive process behind the world’s benchmark sparkling regions, overseen from vineyard to disgorgement by sparkling winemaker Seth Urbanek. He describes the wines as a meeting of old-world technique and Texas innovation, which is a tidy way of saying these are Texas-grown grapes handled with Champagne’s playbook.

CEO and co-founder Chris Brundrett has never been quiet about the ambition. “Our goal isn’t just to make great sparkling wine,” he said. “It’s to show the world that Texas deserves a place among the great sparkling wine regions.” The room is the clearest version of that pitch to date.

There’s a wine club as well, the R.C. Express, named with a wink to both the Pony Express and the building’s mail-carrying past. Members receive allocations, access to limited-production bottles, and invitations to events.

Rebecca Caroline is open Thursday through Saturday from 11am to 6pm and Sunday from noon to 5pm. Reservations are encouraged. Tastings run $35 per guest for a 60-minute experience, with oysters and caviar available.

Rebecca Caroline Tasting Room
Inside the historic Hye Post Office, 10261 US Highway 290, Hye, Texas 78635
Thursday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm. Sunday, noon to 5pm.
$35 per guest, 60-minute experience. Reservations at rebeccacaroline.com/visit.