We ducked and bobbed through barbed-wire fences along a “trail” that was really just grass and brush trampled flat by months of this same daily walk — half a mile or so before it finally opened onto the actual path. I felt a wave of relief when I saw it. I’d pictured something manageable. What I hadn’t accounted for was the tequila still working its way out of my system from a night spent partaking in traditions with some locals, or the fact that I’d forgotten to bring water. There was no way I was letting anyone see me sweat, so I stayed as close behind the guides as I could, doing my best impression of a person whose legs weren’t currently negotiating with altitude and alcohol at the same time.

The “trail” turned out to be an endless run of steep steps and rocky edges. Somewhere in the middle of it, one of the guides mentioned, almost in passing, that influencers regularly get fully done up — heels and all — just to climb these same steps for one photo. I was appalled and a little impressed, in roughly equal measure, and it was at that exact moment that I lost my footing on a slick rock as Perro brushed past my feet, clearly annoyed that I wasn’t moving at the pace he’d grown accustomed to. I nearly went down right there on the side of the mountain. Luckily, no one saw.

I kept my head down after that, glancing up every few minutes just to gauge how much further we had to go for a view that, apparently, is good enough to bring the same person back up here every single day. Eventually we reached a large metal gate, its lock hanging open. Our guide made it sound like good luck — on bad-weather days, this gate is as far as anyone gets. He asked if I wanted to turn around. My tequila sweats said yes. My pride said absolutely not.

Past the gate, the trail disappeared entirely. What came next was a stretch of slick rock sloping straight down the mountainside, no carved path, no room for hesitation. I grabbed the hand offered to me and borrowed a little of the confidence that comes from having done this climb a thousand times before, which I clearly had not. Don’t look over the edge, I told myself. It’s going to be worth it once you’re at the top. My heart was going a mile a minute, and somewhere underneath that, a quieter voice reminding me that I really hadn’t needed that third tequila, lime, and mineral water I’d so happily accepted at the end of the feast the night before.

“Almost there,” one of the guides said. “You’re agile,” he told me, in Spanish, and I smiled and laughed politely, because he had no idea what was actually going through my head. I took a breath, put one foot in front of the other, and within minutes the trail opened into a clearing. The other two were already at the top, looking out into the abyss. I took my final step up, turned to see what they were seeing, and every thought I’d been carrying the whole way up simply stopped.

The clouds were breaking apart, the sun just beginning to push through and reveal the start of a new day. Through the clearing haze, the view seemed to go on forever. The stately cathedral anchoring the town below suddenly looked miniature. The houses were reduced to tiny gray specks. There was a cold morning wind moving through my hair, and then a stretch of complete silence — all of us just standing there, staring into it, not saying a word. I remember thinking how lucky they were to get to do this every morning, and understanding, finally, exactly why Perro had chosen this as how he spends his mornings too.

We took a few photos. By the time we started down, I’d already forgotten everything that had just happened on the way up — the tequila, the fear, the almost-fall, all of it. And that, I think, was exactly the point. It felt like the truest metaphor for life I’d stumbled into in a long time: you rarely remember the climb once you’re standing in the view.

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The more I’ve sat with an arrangement, the more it’s started to feel like the same instinct I bring to curating a room, or a table, or an evening. Flowers are a little like people. Putting the right ones together in a vase isn’t so different from putting the right people around a table — everything in it needs enough in common to feel like it belongs in the same conversation, but not so much that nothing is left to discover. All texture and no character reads as flat. All character and no texture reads as chaos. The arrangements I love most, like the rooms I love most, hold both at once.

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Every stem seems to carry its own personality, and half the work of arranging is simply listening to what each one is already saying — which is really just another way of saying that if flowers were guests at my table, I could tell you exactly who’s who. A single calla lily, alone in a slim glass bud vase, says something almost nobody else can — serene, elegant, quietly rich, the kind of restraint that doesn’t need company to make its point. She’s the one with layers, clearly having lived enough life to have opinions about all of it, who only shares them if you actually ask. Dahlias are the opposite kind of beautiful. They’re enchanting in a way that pulls you in and keeps you there, all that impossible structure folding in on itself, blunt corners and sharp points sitting in the same bloom, stately without ever asking permission to be. She’s the one who casually says the thing nobody else at the table had considered yet, and now you can’t stop thinking about it either. Sunflowers are pure energy — playful, a little rustic, the kind of flower that makes a kitchen table feel like you’ve wandered into the middle of a field in Tuscany on the first warm afternoon of the season. She’s the friend you quietly wonder if she’s slept at all this week, who never once runs out of things to say and somehow keeps the whole room’s pace moving anyway. Roses, of course, do what roses have always done. Classic, romantic, timeless enough to transport you somewhere else entirely, no matter how many times you’ve arranged them before. She’s the dreamer of the group, the one who makes anything sound possible for exactly as long as the story lasts. And ranunculus ask something different of you than any of the others — they feel fragile, almost dainty, their delicate petals so thin you find yourself wanting to protect them, handling the whole arrangement a little more gently just because they’re in it. She’s the one you keep half an eye on all night without ever deciding to, topping off her glass before she’s had to ask.

None of this is really about knowing more about flowers than the next person. It’s about understanding that a vase, like a room, is a small act of curation — a decision about what feeling you’re trying to create before a single guest has walked in or a single glass has been poured. That’s exactly why it matters just as much for an event as it does for an ordinary Tuesday at home. The flowers set the tone before I’ve said a word to anyone, the same way the lighting does, or the music, or the way a room is arranged to let people talk to one another.

Most weeks, once the arrangement is finally done, I do the same two things in the same order. First, I photograph it — I can’t help myself, and my camera roll has the humiliating evidence of exactly how often. But just before that, for one unphotographed second, I actually stop and look at it. Not adjust it one more time. Just admire it. That tiny pause might be the entire point, camera roll aside. The flowers aren’t only setting a mood for whoever walks into the room next. For one quiet moment, before anyone else sees them at all, they’re setting it for me.

Here’s what got me though. The horse I was on used to be wild, on that same ranch. Now it was carrying me up a mountain so I could watch its old life take off without it. I kept thinking about that the rest of the ride.

There was something else too. We were out on unmarked trails, no fences, nothing telling us where to go, just this massive untamed, desert-like landscape stretching out in every direction. It felt like total freedom. But at the same time, we were all riding single file, following one another, nobody breaking off on their own. Freedom and order, happening at once. I hadn’t expected that combination, and I couldn’t stop noticing it.

That night we had barbacoa from a goat that had been roasting all day. It had been raised right there on that land, and it was offered to us, to me, a total newcomer, as a gift. Nourishment, plain and simple. It had been waiting for us the whole time we were out riding, and there was something about that I couldn’t get over, that this thing had been prepared for us before we’d even arrived. There was nothing fancy about the presentation, just meat wrapped in a cactus leaf, laid bare on the table, piles of tortillas, salsa from the molcajete, and mismatched silverware. It was raw, rustic, and absolutely beautiful.

We ate it together afterward, then moved on to bone marrow tacos at sunset with wine from vineyards nearby, and told stories late into the evening. Some of it was in Spanish, some in English, and plenty of it was neither, just gestures and laughing and pointing at objects. Even when we couldn’t fully communicate, there was an understanding between all of us that didn’t need translating. It should’ve felt like a contrast, wild horses in the morning, a feast at night. It didn’t though. Felt like the same trip. Wild stuff, tamed stuff, and me stuck somewhere in between.

This is actually the whole reason I fell for wine in the first place. Not the wine itself, at least not at first. It was standing in the actual regions where it comes from. Seeing the dirt, the slope of the hills, the exact light the grapes grow in and then tasting something that somehow tasted like that place. Once you make that connection, you can’t unmake it. Every glass after that is a little bit of geography.

That’s why I started cooking and hosting people at home, pairing wine with food I made myself. Not to show off. I just wanted other people to have that same moment, where a place stops being a photo you saw once and becomes something you can actually taste. Watching someone’s face change when the wine and the dish click and they suddenly understand why is honestly one of my favorite things to witness.

So sitting there at sunset with bone marrow tacos and a glass of wine grown not to far from where we’d just ridden, that wasn’t a break from the wild horses moment. It was the same thing. Both were about being somewhere completely, with all your senses on.

I think that’s what I actually chase now. Not just good food, not just good wine, but the thing underneath both. Being somewhere so completely that you stop being a visitor to it. The horses running through that basin weren’t performing for us. The goat had been turning over that fire since morning, no matter who showed up to eat it. None of it was staged. We just happened to be there for it.

That’s the difference between a trip and a moment like this one. A trip you photograph. A moment like this you carry around for weeks, still turning it over. The same way I didn’t know what to do with the thought of my horse watching its old life run free.

I don’t have a clean lesson to wrap this up with. I’m not sure I want one. A basin full of wild things, a fire that had been burning all day, a glass of wine that tasted like the hills we’d just ridden through, and me, somewhere in the middle of it, wild and tamed in equal measure, exactly like everything else around me that day.

Ashleigh Amoroso Studio

Ashleigh Amoroso Studio sits right in the middle of Austin’s business district, which makes it feel even more improbable once you’re inside — black-and-white checkered floors underfoot, original light hardwood floors that have clearly held decades of footsteps, and a set of black stairs that creak on the way up to the loft. The built-in bookshelves are curated rather than filled — plants, small hosting objects, painted artwork framed in bronze along the walls. It’s an ideal size for an intimate dinner or a seated wine tasting, and it’s exactly that scale — small enough that everyone in the room ends up in one conversation — that’s made me come back to host here twice already.

Maison Rêve

Maison Rêve is tucked just off one of Austin’s busier streets, which makes the moment the bronze gates open feel almost theatrical. What’s behind them is a restored Victorian home with a distinctly Parisian sensibility, brought back to its former glory — ornate damask wallpaper, moody lighting, crystal chandeliers, a formal sitting room and dining area that flow into each other in a way that makes the whole house feel like it’s still revealing itself room by room. It’s abundance and glamour without apology, the Gilded Age reimagined for one night, and it’s one of the few places in Austin where a wine event can feel genuinely transportive rather than just well-decorated.

French Legation

The French Legation is one of the true best-kept secrets in Austin, and I mean that literally — it’s one of the original French embassies in Texas, sitting on three acres in the middle of East Austin, and most people who’ve lived here for years have never set foot on the property. The lawn is expansive enough for a proper picnic under a massive live oak, and the original house has a stately patio that looks out over the Capitol from one of the highest points in the city. Inside the kitchen quarters, the original stone fireplace still stands, copper pots and vessels hanging along the wall exactly as they would have generations ago. It’s the rare space that lets you host a wine dinner with actual Texas history sitting in the room with you.

The Inn at Jennifer’s Gardens

I haven’t hosted here yet — I’m waiting for the right occasion to do it justice — but it’s been on my list for a while. There’s a large outdoor amphitheater on the property that’s hosted real musicians in front of real audiences, and tucked further into the garden is a green coated iron pergola shading a weathered old dining table beneath a star-shaped chandelier. Just beside the garden, a large wooden door framed in classic mosaic tile opens into a home decorated in full color inside. It has every ingredient of the kind of night I’m always trying to build — movement through distinct spaces, a sense that you’re discovering the property one room at a time, and enough atmosphere to carry a wine dinner from the first pour to the last.

What ties all four of these places together isn’t wine at all — it’s that none of them announce themselves. You have to be brought there, or told about them, or handed the address by someone who already knows. That’s exactly why they work. A great wine event isn’t really about the bottle on the table. It’s about handing someone a door they didn’t know was there, and watching them walk through it.

It’s not about age, exactly, or even architecture. It’s a feeling — that something has happened here before I arrived. Less a lingering conversation, more the specific feeling of someone who told themselves they were just stopping in for one glass, and somehow didn’t leave until well past midnight. A room that existed in its own right long before it became a place I could walk into. I’m not interested in spaces that were built to impress me. I’m interested in spaces that feel like they’d go on being themselves whether I showed up or not.

That’s why I’ve always been drawn to discovery over declaration. I don’t want the grand entrance, the obvious front door, the room you can see the second you walk in. I want the unmarked door. The stairwell that doesn’t look like it leads anywhere interesting. The room tucked behind another room. There’s a version of hospitality that announces itself, and there’s a version that waits to be found — and the second one is the only kind that has ever really held my attention. Being found feels earned. Being obvious just feels loud.

Once I’m inside, what I’m really searching for is character — and character almost always announces itself through imperfection. The dings worn into an old baseboard from decades of chairs and furniture being pushed in and out. Black-and-white tile gone soft and pale in one particular spot from a hundred nights of stiletto heels. A chair that doesn’t match the one next to it because it faded from the sunlight coming through the window pane. Warm light — candlelight especially, or anything that flickers rather than hums. Walls that have absorbed decades of smoke and conversation and spilled wine and are better for it. Perfection reads as new, and new has no story yet. I’d rather sit in a room with a limp in its step than one that’s trying too hard to be right.

Scale matters more than people give it credit for. My favorite rooms are the ones sized so that you could, if you wanted to, speak to nearly everyone in them — not because it’s small, but because it flows. There’s an intimacy in that kind of proportion that no amount of square footage or design budget can manufacture. A room either invites the whole table into one conversation, or it doesn’t.

And then there’s movement — which might be the thing I think about more than anything else when I imagine a night. I don’t want one static room for an entire evening. I want dinner on a patio under string lights or candlelight, and then a shift — through a doorway you didn’t clock on the way in, into a smaller room with different light and a different pour, for the last hour of the night. Moving from outdoors to in, or from one space into a room you didn’t know was there, changes the emotional temperature of an evening in a way that staying put never can. The best nights have chapters.

Every time I walk into a space like this, I can’t help but start imagining. Where the dinner would go. Where people would end up with a glass in hand by the end of the night. How I’d light it. What arrival would feel like — the first ten seconds, before anyone says a word. Who I’d invite. It’s less about the room as it exists and more about the room as it could become in someone else’s hands, for one particular night, with one particular group of people.

I think this is really what I’m chasing whenever I look for a space, a hotel, a table, a room to build something in. Not the most beautiful room in the city. The room that already has a story — and enough possibility left in it for one more.

These are the seven wine bars in Austin I find myself coming back to, not because a list told me to, but because each one has earned a permanent place in my rotation. They’re not ranked. They’re organized the way I actually use them — by what kind of night I’m looking for.

Neighborhood Vintner

For when you want to talk to someone who really knows wine

Tucked into Westlake, Neighborhood Vintner is the closest thing Austin has to a Cheers for wine professionals. Walk in on any given night and you’ll likely run into someone from the industry — a sommelier between shifts, a distributor, or a winemaker visiting from Europe who wants to share their wines and tell their story to a fellow wine lover. That’s the magic of this place. Beyond the crowd, the staff’s wine knowledge is some of the sharpest in town, which makes it one of the best wine bars in Austin for actually learning something while you drink. If you want a genuine education alongside your glass, this is where I send people first.

The Meteor

For hunting down a hidden gem

The Meteor, in South Congress, is my spot for treasure hunting. Their wine fridges are stocked with the kind of bottles you won’t find scrolling a typical list — lesser-known producers from corners of Europe most people have never heard of, let alone tried. I go in with no plan and let the fridge tell me what the night is going to be. If you love the thrill of discovering a region before everyone else catches on, The Meteor rewards that curiosity every single time.

Apt 115

For feeling like you just walked into someone’s home

Apt 115 in East Austin still feels like walking into someone’s cozy apartment, and that’s entirely the point. What makes it extraordinary is the owner behind it — a deeply passionate collector who never had formal wine education, yet somehow knows more than most trained professionals because he built his knowledge the honest way: through travel, obsession, and years of personal curation. His selection spans the world and reflects a genuinely original palate rather than a textbook one. Add in the rotating chef program and ever-changing tasting menus paired thoughtfully with wine, and Apt 115 becomes the ideal setting for a real celebration — the kind of night worth planning around.

Lenoir

For a beautiful afternoon

Lenoir’s wine garden in South Congress is one of Austin’s true hidden gems, and it might be my favorite place in the city to sit with a glass in the late afternoon. The space feels collected rather than decorated — mismatched furniture, lanterns hanging from oak trees that glow as the light shifts, and a hand-painted white wooden wine bar that pulls you into the garden the moment you arrive. Layer in a beautifully curated wine list and you have the perfect antidote to a long week — quiet, unhurried, and completely transporting.

Le Calamar

For the most interesting by-the-glass list in town

Le Calamar on South 1st in Bouldin Creek has become one of my go-to spots purely for the wine curation. Their by-the-glass options rotate constantly and lean into small European wine regions, while the full list expands into an impressively global range that champions small and boutique producers. They have a genuine soft spot for underrated regions — Jura included, which is basically a personal love language for me — and the snacks are just right for grazing while you taste. Grab a seat at the bar, ask what they’ve got open, and let them steer you toward something you’ve never had before.

Rosie’s Wine Bar

For a quaint escape into Clarksville

Rosie’s Wine Bar feels like slipping into a hidden nook in Clarksville — a brick patio, a cozy interior, and a wine list with a distinct Spanish influence running through both the bottles and the bites. What I appreciate most is the range: they represent everything from well-known regions to lesser-explored corners of the wine world, with a list that leans natural without ever feeling too funky. It’s quaint, it’s solid, and it’s one of the more understated wine bars in Austin worth seeking out.

June’s All Day

For the best wine list and the best excuse to meet a friend

June’s All Day in South Congress might have my favorite wine list — and my favorite atmosphere — of anywhere in the city. I’m a devoted bubbles person, and their sparkling selection genuinely delivers: Champagne, Franciacorta, Cava, and everything in between, each one a small delight alongside their fries and the seasonal chilled artichoke dip. It’s a classic order paired with a criminally underrated pairing, and it’s usually the first place I suggest when someone wants to meet me for a glass of wine.

Every one of these places says something different about how Austin drinks wine right now — some rooms built around expertise, some around discovery, some simply around the feeling of being somewhere you belong. That’s really what I’m always chasing when I choose where to sit down with a glass: not the most impressive bottle in the room, but the room itself, and who I get to share it with.