Los Olivos offers Texas-made gourmet offerings of all sorts

Looking for mango-lime salsa? How about Amaretto pecan honey butter? Or a wine from that small, offthe-beaten-track winery?

When it comes to Texas-made gourmet and specialty food products, it’s hard to beat Los Olivos Market on the Square.

The store has been a fixture in Wimberley for 10 years with the first 9 years being known as Taste Buds. The father-daughter team of Rafael and Rebecca Varela took over about a year ago. They remodeled and rebranded the store and added a tapas-style menu, but kept the same basic retail concept: Texas wines, Texas beer and Texas food products.

Rebecca graduated from the University of Texas in 2017. She studied public relations. “I knew I wanted to go into wine and food,” she says.

Where does the name come from? The family owns a ranch in Dripping Springs called Los Olivos, so it was only natural to use that name for the market. Business has been good and this fall, a second location will be opening in Buda. The Buda store will carry many of the same items, but will be larger which will allow for an expanded menu.

A unique menu

The Varelas worked with Austin chef John Herdman to fine tune the menu. Herdman is executive chef at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center at the University of Texas. The sandwiches, for example, have a definite gourmet feel. The Claude sandwich is made with roasted turkey, smoked gouda cheese, roasted red bell peppers, avocado and chipotle mayo.

Customers can choose from seven types of meats and eight types of cheeses to assemble their own charcuterie boards. Each board comes with almonds, mustard seeds and peppers. Most of the meats and cheeses are locally sourced.

You’ll find many of the same food products that Taste Buds featured.

“We kept the concept.” says Rebecca. “Taste Buds did have a lot of loyal customers. We have added seating to make this feel like a local hangout. Taste Buds was more of a weekend tourist spot. We wanted to change that, to make it for locals too.”

The polished bar is made from a cypress tree that was uprooted during the 2015 Memorial Day flood and features four beers on tap, including local brews from Middleton and Roughhouse. There are also 35 different brands available in bottles. “We’d have more beer on tap if only we had the room,” says Rebecca. There are also colorful machines mixing wine-based cocktails.

Always adding products

“We didn’t want to take anything out. Rather than removing we have added,” says Rebecca. A lot of customers from out of town have been visiting the store for years and have their favorite salsa or jelly.

The best selling items are wines and salsas. Almost all of the wines are from Texas, with a few international labels sprinkled in. The best sellers are a red blend from Kuhlman Cellars in Stonewall called Gypsum and a Malbec from Becker Vineyards in Fredericksburg. Wine tasting is $9 for five samples, and the cost is waived if you buy a couple bottles of wine. A beer sampling is also $9.

Los Olivos offers more than 100 different wines and the wine and beer selection is always changing. “We are always looking for new vineyards,” explains Rebecca. “We love to feature smaller, lesser-known wineries.”

On the weekends Los Olivos is a busy place for the staff of seven. “Saturdays this place is packed,” says Rebecca. “From 2 to 5 or 2 to 6 we know we are not going to be able to sit down.”

On June 7, Los Olivos will be hosting a special event to help kick off the new menu and celebrate the first year in business. Winemakers will be present and 50 percent of the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the local animal-rescue group WAG (Wimberley Adoption Group).

When asked to describe Los Olivos in a few words, Rebecca paused to think. “We’re a wine and tapas bar,” she said. “We like to connect Texas charm.”