The name Stone House Vineyard suggests permanence and durability, two qualities owners Angela and Howard Moench undoubtedly espouse in their winemaking and grape growing. The winery is constructed of massive limestone blocks—forming a veritable stone house—each weighing more than 2,000 pounds. In addition to this unique feature, there’s the fact that while Stone House is rooted in Texas, its herit
age stretches all the way to Australia, the home country of founder Angela. She hails from the Barossa Valley wine country and continues to source grapes and winemaking techniques—including her winemaker—from that area in order to craft wines that blend Texas and Australian methodologies and flavors to showcase two viticultural rising stars at once. Angela and Howard have long been enthusiastic about good wine and food, but when they acquired several acres of land bordering the Hill Country’s Lake Travis in 1996, they had no intention of planting grape vines. Within a year, however, the idea of joining the evolving wine industry in Texas was growing on them. In 1999, after considerable research with viticulturists and oenologists, it was decided to plant nearly seven acres of the Norton grape varietal that produces a delicious medium to full-bodied red wine. Norton also has other attributes: it is disease resistant and has a late bud break thereby avoiding the late freezes in the Texas Hill Country. By the first vintage in 2002, Angela was fully in charge of the vineyard and determined to produce the highest quality grapes – and Howard was allowed to walk among the vines and admire her work. By 2012, Howard was allowed to help in the vineyard, as Angela only has two hands. He is a frustrated architect (and a real life physician), but he achieved functionality, practicality, and beauty in the two buildings that comprise the winery.
