Messina Hof Wineries

Visiting with the founders of the internationally-known Messina Hof Wineries, pioneer of the Texas wine industry.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi everyone. I'm Ktrh's Sharaf Fryerand this is my heart of Texas,

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Messina Half Winery. That's where wejourney in this episode. The most award
winning winery in Texas is Full Throttleor should I say Bottle in claiming bragging
rights across the world. A winerythat made its first planting in Brian,
Texas in nineteen seventy seven, hasnow pioneered a thriving twenty first century industry

(00:48):
in the lone Star state, andthe horizon is only expanding, say Messina
Half founders Meryl and Paul Buonarego.She's fifth generation Texan of Blish and German
descent. He's an import born inthe shadow of Yankee Stadium of Cecilian ancestry,
hence the conjoint name of Messina HoffWinery. Their personal story is Messina

(01:14):
Hoff, a family tradition and romancefueled by hard work and faith. Marilyn,
I had our first date January twentyeighth, nineteen seventy seven, and
by May fifth we were married.You know, I had a It's a
strange thing, but when I wasa kid, I had a jelly jar

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and the jelly jar was a supposedquote of Davy Crockett and it said,
be sure you're right, then goahead, And that's been my life's philosophy.
They are yet another story of Texasand being Texan, we compliment one
another. I think that, youknow, that's that's sort of how the

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Lord maximizes relationship, right And Ithink being Texan myself, Texans are pioneers.
We do have a pioneering spirit.So it was easy to move into
pioneering a wine industry with the loveof my life. That was just a

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natural. And when you're living withthe most positive and optimistic individual that I
have ever met in my life,cannot help but have all of that rub
off on you. Because New Yorkersare not known for their hospitality and usually
their determination to always look at thepositive side of things, and Merrill is

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just that way. I mean everything. She believes that everything is doable,
and the Lord has a plan forall of this, and we've lived that
plan because many doors have opened up. I mean, our friendship was an
open door and you know we havecherished it all through these years because back

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in the early days of Texas wine, it was a little bit like being
one of those troops during Vietnam,we were not welcome that much. So
we had to really forge relationships thatopened the door that allowed Texas wine to
walk through. Let's go back tohow this Once upon a time, New

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Yorker Paul Bonerigo got his first impressionof Texas. He was a Vietnam era
NATYVE physical therapist driving from California tohis new base in Florida. As I
was driving through Fort Stockton, andI stayed at a motel and I asked
the gentleman how much is the room? And I was in uniform, and

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he said the room is free.And I asked why is it free and
he said because you're on active dutyand we support our people. And I
thought, wow, what a vastdifference from the Northeast. And then when
I asked for dinner, he said, go down to the diner. I
went to the diner and I nevergot a bill, and I asked the
man where was the bill, andhe said, we don't charge our people

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in uniform. And so I fromthat moment on, I said, I'm
going to try to get back toTexas as fast as I can, and
he did. Just a few yearslater, when leaving the Navy, he
was asked to join a physical therapygroup in Texas and ultimately settled in Brian.
While the rest is history, theBonaregos are the first to admit there
was no plan to launch Messina.Hooff Merroll just wanted a country piece of

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land, and it was through aphysical therapy patient who just happened to be
moving back to Alaska to be withher family. Yeah, and I wind
up with a patient who sprains hisankle and is talking about his PhD dissertation
at A and M. And it'son the feasibility of tech growing grapes in

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Texas. So everything just clicked,one thing after another. And Ron Perry
was the PhD student and he workedwith us out here and we planted fourteen
different varieties on one acre, expectingeverything was going to die, because everybody
was very pessimistic about this. Butmy optimistic wife said, I think it's

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going to work. And sure enoughit worked, and you know, we
made wine, put it in thestate fair. It won a gold ribbon
or gold medal, and we said, hey, let's start a winery.
We can do this, Yes,So we bought a dairy in Anderson Texas
and moved all of their milk tanksto a mobile home and a car poard

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and that was the beginning of Messina. It's just an amazing tale. And
it's not as though you were driveninitially by a dream I am going to
grow grapes now. That's how weknow that it was really sort of a
divine guidance for us, because wedid not have that dream. We were
Paul was a wonderful physical therapist andI had a real estate career. That

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was what we had planned for,and then all of a sudden, this
door opens. I'm so thankful todaythat we chose to step through that door.
So believe a faith really, andthen one door kept opening after another
door after another door. I mean, it's amazing to think that when we
started planting that first vineyard in nineteenseventy seven, that there were only two

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wineries in the entire state of Texasat that time, and now there are
over nine hundred. It's amazing.Yeah. With the new discovery of wine
in the United States, it isjust phenomenal to see all of the growth
that has happened in our industry andwe are just at the beginning of this
industrial growth because we're planting more grapes, more types of grapes, We're learning

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more about our consumers. We're gettinga lot of strong VIP of consumers that
are interested only in Texas wine.And it's really exciting only in Texas wine.
That is like, that's a selfcanceling phrase, or it has been.
When you wrote your book, youtitle one of the chapter's pet Rock
Era, and then right after thepet Rock we became the Rodney danger Field.

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We get no respect. Period.It's been an evolution, and we're
still in that Rodney danger Field erato some people. They have to discover
it themselves. And we encourage ourcustomers to do blind tastings with our wines
against some of the greatest wines inthe world, and nine out of ten

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times they're just amazed. They're shocked, and hopefully we arrive at a point
where they're no longer shocked. That'swhen we have accomplished our mission. Well,
you've been on this mission for along time. Why did you make
it your mission? Why was itso important to the both of you that
Texas wine get the respect. Ithink initially it was back to those mantras

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that Paul was mentioning and that youeven mentioned, you know. One of
them was can't never could do nothing, So you don't quit, you never
quit, you keep striving forward.And the other one was one that my
family kept saying over and over againas I grew up, and that was
nothing is impossible. With God,everything is possible. So not to let

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obstacles get in your way that mustprevent you from going where you need to
go. And so those were tworeally important foundational stones in our journey.
And then at the same time thatwe were walking through those doors, even
though we had these opportunities, therewere also other people coming in that were

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teaching about wine growing through the TexasWine and Great Doors Association, and Paul
went out and took courses in Californiafor winemaking, and we could see that
the quality of the wine would bethere, and so that was what gave
us hope. You brought in thecrop, then you had to learn how

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to turn it into wine. Andthen after you get all that done and
you've bottled it and you think you'vedone all your job, then you find
out you also have to self marketbecause there's nobody there to market it for
you. And we couldn't afford abig sales staff, so we had to
be the sail staff. So that'swhy you know, we were on the

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road so much. One year,Marylyn and I were on the road two
hundred and twelve days. I thinkwe did fifty seven wine dinners that one
year. Well, and we wouldspend five days in Dallas, five days
and four words. We'd go downto Austin, we'd go to San Antonio,
we'd spend a lot of time inHouston. And then we also started

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encouraging cities to do wine festivals.Meryl first met the Visitor and Convention Bureau
director. It was in grape Vinenow on a happenstance, and Merril's got
a great story about that. Wewere just beginning. This was in the
late eighties and the wine industry wasvery young, but it was sparking some

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interest in Texas Highways asked me togo and speak to a conference of convention
and Visitors Bureau directors. So theyflew me. I believe it it was
either Richtop Falls or Abilene and Iwent in and I spoke. I had
my little slides. I showed thempictures of what the wine industry looked like

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right now at Messina, haff whatour vision was. Well, here we
are decades later in grape Vine,at Grapefest, the p W McCallum came
and told us that he wanted tolet me know that it was that seed
that I had planted there at thatconference that led him to pursue grape Vine

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and the wine fut stable there ina grape gun, you never know what
seeds you planned, how they willgrow, and then what the ripple effects
will be. And their first yearthey had five hundred people attend a one
day festival, and now it's afour day festival and two hundred and sixty
thousand people go to it. Andyou know, for us, it's always

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been about education because, like yousaid, it was a new industry.
People had not embraced it. Theydidn't really believe that Texas can make good
wine, and so we were constantlyhaving to educate not only our customers but
the store shops to let them knowand taste of wine so they would sell

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it for us. The media.You know, you were right on board
from the so early. I soappreciated when you came out. That was
like a charge of energy for us. I was fascinated. Your son,
as I recall, was just runningaround. He didn't even he didn't even
reach the rise of the grape vines. I mean, the grapevines were new

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and your son was new, andit was like, you must be crazy.
These people must be crazy. Manypeople said that when you started winning
all these competitions, not just Texascompetitions or the Rodeo competition, which is
a big one, but when youstarted winning international competitions and going up against
the fancy wines from Europe and California, such a sense of pride. I

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can't even imagine how it made youfeel well. And the way the Rodeo
has worked out. There was alot of resistance at first on diversification of
what the Rodeo was supposed to be, and after speaking to the Rodeo committee
about Texas Wine and having a winecompetition, they saw the vision and look

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what it's turned into. I mean, it's one of the best wine competitions
in the United States, maybe inthe world. It has the most unique
prizes. I mean, when youwin a major prize, you get a
sad People all over the world talkabout the Houston Livestock Show and rodeo and
trying to win one of those saddles, and if they don't win the big

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prize and they win the best ofclass, to get a Texas belt buckle
is so unique how that's developed,just like a bull rider. Absolutely,
and we love to wear those beltbuckles too. Yeah, well you have
how many saddles now? Slung overwine barrels? That's where I usually find

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them in the tasting rooms. We'revery fortunate. We have eight I think
belt buckles. My god, Ithink we have about six hundred. Could
you have done this? Do youthink in some other states? Well,
I mean we have been in otherstates, and the attitude in those states
is nothing like Texas. Because whenyou present in Texas, at least at
this stage of our development, peoplewill give you the time of day.

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I mean they will be kind andcourteous. We've had success being able to
present the folks like Landryes were onSalt Grass Wine list all over the United
States. When you do go outof state, it's almost like being back
in nineteen eighty five. I meanyou're starting from scratch. Texas makes wine.

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You know, you were back inthe pet rock days, and it's
much more difficult when you open upanother state. Plus we had our customers
became ambassadors for US. I don'tthink we could have done it without them.
And not only that, but wewould hand out cards that they could
take with them two restaurants that said, you know, conserve Texas water,
great Texas wine. We would haveso much more enjoyed our experience here if

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you had served the saff wine.And then they would leave. Those that
helped enormously in US getting wines andplacements of wines and restaurants and stores.
And some of the things that wewould always do is that we would never
want to replace a Texas wine withour wine. So if we went into

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a store and they said, oh, I'll put your wine on the shelf,
but we'll be taking a Texas wineoff, we would say, please
don't. If you want to takeanother wine from another state or another country
off, fine, but don't removeanother Texas wine. So that's been our
philosophy. We have always first promotedMessina hof but secondly promoted Texas wine.

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You know, we feel a needto just educate people about Texas wine.
I mean, they need to knowthat this industry is for real and it's
going to continue to grow, andhow is that happening? Stay with us,
so we'll be right back. Great. The fruit of the vine are

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intertwined with humans is over millennia,but it was the Spanish missionaries who brought
European rootstock to Texas. The oldestvineyard planted near El Paso in sixteen sixty
two. The oldest wineries still existedin Mexico, Cosamadero, dates to fifteen
ninety seven, about two hundred andseventy five miles from Laredo. The wild
mustang grapes that I know in LavacaCounty, they're native to Texas, and

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I'll need to consult with Texas Aand M to learn that they were here
even before the conquistadors of the earlyfifteen hundreds. But you get the picture.
We have always really wondered and alwaysreally prided ourselves on the ethnicity of
Texas because we have such strong Italian, German, French, Spanish roots in

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our state. And each of thembrought a lot of wine culture with them,
and just because they moved from theirnative country when they came, they
brought with them as many of theirfood and wine experiences as they could,
so they grew grapes almost immediately fromthe time that they landed, and some

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of them had success and some ofthem didn't. And you know, they
were going to make wine one wayor another. Most historians credit the Great
Migration, the German immigration into theRepublic of Texas in the eighteen forties as
the real beginnings of wineries here,small vineyards and neighborly roots that are deeply
implanted even today because ultimately all successdepended on the land, the actual dirt

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French word, the terraa of TexasOkay, Tarawa. How long did it
take you to realize that the terraawas here? Well, once you start
traveling, see, that's to methe real benefit and you start listening like
we were. One of our firsttrips, we went to Bordeaux, and
in Bordeaux, the amount of rainfallthat they get and the amount of rainfall

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we get for the most part inthe coastal region of Texas is very similar.
When you walk in the vineyards ofBordeaux, and we're talking about some
of the finest vineyards in the world, it sticks to your feet when they
it rains, So the clay clogsare just like the clay clogs that we

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get in East Texas, so thepotential there and Bordeaux was a swamp,
and so people would criticize why didthese French Parisians put so many dollars into
vineyards in a place that was unlikelyto succeed. They made it work,

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and that's what's happening in Texas.We have clay, we have sand,
we have limestone, we have everyterwa that we have seen all over the
world somewhere in some place in Texas, and Texas, as large as it
is, can do that. Thegood news about Ventral Texas is that we
still have plenty of rainfall, sowe're not suffering as a result of drought

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and insufficient water. And I thinkthat's going to be the wine industry's next
very big challenge, the water.Yes, helping each other. It's a
very competitive industry. And yet withinTexas you have really made it a point,
even getting the point of the grapeshave to be grown in Texas in

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order to get that label, proudlyputting the label of Texas on Texas grown.
What was the philosophy behind that.We have to support our growers.
We have to make sure that everygrower in the state has a home for
their grapes because that will stimulate moreacres of grapes to be put in and

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as long as we can do that, because it is far easier to just
go out and buy, let's expensivewine and put it in a bottle.
But that's not representing what Texas.This is about Texas. The whole point
is you grow it, you produceit, and you sell it right here
in the state. And then whenwe are fortunate to be able to take

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it out of state in places likeLouisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, New
York, San Francisco. You know, because our second best state for selling
our wine is actually California. Peopleare amazed at that. Why would Californians
be wanting to buy Texas wine.It's because they appreciate good wine. It's

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coming from a Texas appellation, butit's great wine. And that's important because
you cannot get a Texas teroi fromgreats not grown in the state. Actually
have to establish what that Texas teroitastes like. And I think that was
one of the first things that reallyhit me in a tasting where we had
our Merlow against a French Merlow againsta California Merlow. We were tasting them

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blind and they were so significantly differentin flavor profiles, and I realize this
is what Texas wine, Texas merrillois supposed to taste like. And you
have to educate people who think thata merillo is only the merrilow that they've
always had, right, absolutely,right, Yeah, And that's back to
that education component. And at thesame time, you educate. But it's

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fun when you start doing blind tastingsand you start doing food and wine experiences.
Merrill has been so much in theforefront of pairing food and wine with
our books that we've done about foodand wine and how much fun that can
be, and with all the recipesthat we've put up in our different media

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sources. You know, every weekwe do a Facebook posting and it's about
a seven minute posting and we alwaystalk about the food and wine experience and
it's educating people and people really appreciatethat. And now you're writing novels,
I mean really and based novels basedon the Texas wine industry. Yes,

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because we know where all the bodiesare buried. Well, I read it
last night, The Curse of Esticago, Trails of Blood and Wine. But
what really made me laugh, AndI told the guys here at work about
this. I said, you openup the first page and it goes book
one in the series. Have youwritten the others or you just figure they

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are going to be others. We'reworking on book three right now. Number
two is getting ready to be published. As you might guess, the Bona
Rico mission now continues in many andsome unexpected ways, as their son Paul
Im and wife Karen now run thedaily operations and vast development of Messina Hoff.
You might find the founders now hostingriverboat wine tours across Europe and winning

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new converts. We're on a rivercruise in Bordeaux. We're on Alma River
Cruises, and half of the shipis our customers, and the other half
of the ship appeared to be agroup from Connecticut, and the ringleader of
the group was the attorney for theNew York Yankees, and they were having

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a big time buying up all ofthis first growth wine from Bordeaux, and
they were proud of it. Theywere serving it aboard the ship and having
tastings each night, and our groupwas doing the same but they were doing
it with Messina Haff. So onenight the attorney looks at me and says,

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Paul, what are you doing.And I said, we're tasting our
wine. And he said, well, we're tasting our Bordeaux. And I
said, well, we should doa comparative blind tasting of your wines,
the first growths and our wines.And he agreed, and we set it
up with the ship and we tookeighteen people. We took well twenty of

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his best friends, and we servedthem. Half of the wines would attack
ours, and half of the wineswere the first growths. Eighteen of the
twenty of his best buddies chose MessinaHoff over the first growths, and he
was shocked because they had just spentthousands of dollars on these first growths,

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and our wine was considerably less expensive. So we made believers out of a
fine group of folks from Connecticut andalways willing to give a helping hand or
helping wisdom to others, especially aftertheir own forty six years of marriage and
winemaking. The couples just beginning.For us, it would be never take

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your eyes off of each other,family or God. We believe that we
say cords of three are not easilybroken, and that's me, Hall and
God, because you have to sticktogether. We unfortunately witnessed many families that
broke up because of the stresses ofthe wine industry. So I think that's

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number one, keeping our priorities straight, and then number two, seek help,
Seek that we are neighbors. Weare all neighbors in this and neighbors
help each other. Yeah, wehave counseled probably hundreds of people that are
now in the Texas wine industry.Our counsel is free, and we believe

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that if we can help a wineryget started or a vineyard get started,
it benefits the whole. Do youthink that the Texas wine industry will continue
to flourish? Oh? Absolutely.I believe that the perseverance and the positive
attitude of Texans will always prevail.I have seen so many people move to

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Texas from other states, and oncethey're here, they go, boy,
I wish I had come much muchsooner. It is such a pervasive positiveness
that exists in the state. Wesee so much kindness and so much community
around us. That is such astrong power that makes things work in the

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state. Texans have huge heart,and those hearts are what fuel the partnerships
that we have with our customers,our retailers, our employees. I mean,
it's just that the love Texas alove as usual. I'm out of

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time. I didn't get to talkabout the vineyard lifestyles, housing developments in
Bryan, the destination Messino Hof Wineryin Fredericksburg, or the urban wineries.
Well, the direction that the wholestate is going is in more and more
wineries in urban areas. That isa really big trend that's happening, especially

(27:08):
in Texas. So that's the reasonwhy we have a wonderful winery in downtown
Grapevine, and that's the reason whywe opened up the new winery in Richmond,
Texas. Because what we've realized isthat the closer we can bring our
product and our philosophies, the morewe can grow the Texas wine industry.

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And that's what you're seeing all overthe state is this tremendous amount of new
wineries in urban areas. It's afar cry from that old trug and the
old tractor, right. I wishwe still had the old truck. But
you know what, Paul was theright man to lead us through the creative
process of the winery, and ourson is the right man to lead them

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into the new, this new casegoal world of winemaking. There was a
world of Messina Hoff information at Messinahoof dot com and at Merrill's special site
marebone dot com mr bo n dotcom. A heartfield thank you to them
for always answering my calls and alwaysthanks for the helping hands and skill of

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ktr h's brilliant producers Jeff Biggs andJacob Dantone. Y'all are definitely my heart
of Texas. Until next time,