September 11, 2024 • 50 mins
Messina Hof was established in 1977 by Paul Vincent and Merrill Bonarrigo, who began with one acre of vineyard in Bryan, Texas. The Bonarrigos are considered “the first family of Texas wine" and produce many varietals. Messina Hof wines are all produced from Texas grapes. Many are sourced from the high elevation Texas High Plains AVA in the northwest near Lubbock. Son Paul and daughter-in-law Karen Bonarrigo, now oversee winery operations with locations in Bryan, Fredericksburg and Grapevine.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
enjoy traveling the world to bring you the dynamic people
we meet who work front and center and behind the
scenes in wine, food, spirits and hospitality. We love their
stories with you and recommending where to go, what to drink,
(01:03):
and what to eat. And we're really excited because we,
as you all know, we've moved to New Orleans, which
means we're very close to the great state of Texas
and we plan to explore Texas more. It's a very
dynamic wine producing state.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It's number five in the country production.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It's like the largest a large state and has I
think it was over five hundred wineries, seven hundred wineries,
so it's like fairly significant and a wide range of
wines produced. We had the honor of being hosted by
one of the oldest wineries in the great State of Texas.
In fact, they're known as the first family of Texas Wine.
(01:44):
It's Messina Hoff, established in nineteen seventy seven by the
Bonarigo family. We attended their annual harvest festival in Brian, Texas.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
What a fun time it was.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It was so much fun. We stopped grapes you can
find it on the Connected Table Instagram, and we tasted
a lot of wines and got to know the folks
and family of Messina Hoff and also some wonderful people
at Destination Brian who brought us over. We got to
learn about Brian, Texas and College Station and Give which.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Is where Texas A and M is the home.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Of the Aggy Aggie Land and so we got to
eat some really terrific food, but the wines were really terrific.
So we are honored to have on our show today,
Paul and Karen Bonarigo Paul's father, Hawlo Senior and his
wife Merrill founded Messina Hoff and we met them as well.
(02:40):
They've handled all over the reins to Paul and Karen
who showed us around and gave us a tour and
we had lunch that tasted a lot of wine. So
we're going to share their story today on the Connected table. Welcome,
good morning, thank you. Well, first of all, we know
it's a busy time, so thank you for I think
(03:00):
you're doing your fourth harvest festival weekend.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Wrapping it up this weekend, Yes, the fourth weekend of
our state harvest festival.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, and this is like over one hundred and fifty
people were there right when we were.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
There on the last Saturday week one and almost one
hundred and ninety people come on Saturday that for that event.
And then of course we had the event on Friday
night as well. We had about ninety people for that.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
That's incredible. So let's you know, we always like to
start about the background Messina Hoff. Let's just talk about
the name and the heritage behind that and how your family,
where your family came from, and how they arrived in
Texas and where they settled initially.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Absolutely, so the Messina Hoff story is a combination of
Messina Sicily and half Germany. That is where my family
comes from. So my father's side, which is the wine
making side of the family, comes from a Sina Sicily,
a little village outside of out of a Messina called
what Tero. And in our home village, they were the
(04:10):
wine making family. They made the wine for the community.
They grew the grapes and made the wine. My grandfather
immigrated to New York and tried to make a basically
wanting to make a home in the US, and my
dad was born there. He joined the Navy as a
physical therapist and that journey took him to California for
(04:31):
a time or actually he got a chance to do
some interning to learn a little kind of start up
his wine knowledge, and then eventually ended his time in
the Navy and settled here in Brian as the director
of physical therapy for Saint Joseph Hospital. So that's that's
why he came to Brian, Texas and New Yorker coming
(04:52):
down to the Great State of Texas. And then my
mom's side originally from Hulf Germany. They're more beer people,
but but they're now they're now wine people. They actually
came to the US many generations ago, were actually part
of the early German settlers to Texas, you know, as
(05:13):
Fredericksberg is a huge German community there. They actually participated
with the building of that community and then eventually moved
to the Houston area to start a brick factory and
then eventually settled in this in this area around Bryan.
So my mom, my mom was born in Brian, grew
up here, and I went to Texas a and m
(05:35):
That's kind of how that's how both of the different
sides of the family got to Brian and and that's
the name messina Off is the combination of those two cultures.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So how did your parents meet. They were in different careers. Okay,
at the time you said your father was a physical
therapy and like him, you also served with the Navy,
and your mom was in real estate at the time,
right exactly.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
So my mom was in real estate and my dad,
he had been in the community for a few years
but was looking to sell us home and so my
mom was his realtor. And the funny part of the
story was is that you know, you never know how
things work out, and my dad had this dog that
would attack everybody that came to the house, and so
(06:23):
it was a very challenging sale from my mom. I
wound up spending a lot more time with each other
and ironically that extra time they fell in love and
they wound up getting married. So it's kind of a
funny romance story. But then so they got married, they
bought what's now our state in so they married nineteen
seventy seven. They bought the property in nineteen seventy seven,
(06:46):
in early nineteen seventy seven, and with you know, at
the time, really no vision that this was going to
be a winery or a vineyard. That we were way
out in the country back back then, and so they
were just looking for a homestead to be able to
call their own, and very humble beginnings. They had little
(07:07):
mobile home out here, and my dad had a patient
by the name of Roner, by the name of Ron Perry,
who was doing a great feasibility study with TEXA, A
and M. And basically what they were trying to determine
at the time, there was a lot of data about
native grape growing and TV Munson had done a ton
(07:28):
of rootstock research in Texas and actually, ironically Texas roots
were used in his process to save the French industry
from Flocstra. So there was this history of being able
to grow well here. The question was just what vidus
benefita would grow in Texas and where is the best
(07:50):
place to plant? Which is the purpose of that study
that was being done. And ironically it just happened that
Ron was my dad's patient, and he said, you know,
my dad had told the story of the family and
kind of the tradition, which our tradition is the firstborn
son of each of each generations named Paul, it takes
over the winemaking for the generation. Obviously, when my when
(08:12):
my family moved to the US, Prohibition was in full swing,
so the kind of the winemaking heritage stopped with my
grandfather coming to the US. But Ron asked my dad,
he said, you've got this heritage, wouldn't it be cool
to participate in this project? And my dad agreed, and
so they planted an experimental vineyard here on the estate,
(08:32):
which really that was the beginnings of of of everything
that's happened between then and now. They had success with
the with the vineyard. They found Linoir to be the
grape that thrived on this site, which is a native
grape of Texas. But from all from all the research,
they they really dictated what what would be planted for
(08:55):
the next thirty years across the state of Sexis. So
it was a very important study that was done. My
parents bought some milk tanks and some whiskey barrels and
started making some small bash of wine and had some
success with it, started growing and a little bit over time,
they planted more and more acres until the mid eighties
(09:17):
when they had planted out about eighteen acres at that time,
and they built out the kind of the hospitality centers
here on the estate to try to make it a destination,
whether we have our tasting room, our restaurant, and our
bed and breakfast here at the estate. And that's kind
of how they continued to grow until, you know, until
(09:40):
the twenty ten whenever I actually rejoined the family business
to start working on it.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So what's interesting is the depth and breadth of wines
you produced, not only in Texas but at Massine Hawk.
You referenced leun Want, which is black Spanish. Let's talk
about that grape because we that's the one we stopped. Yes,
that is what we stopped and let's talk about what
you make with it.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Absolutely, so Linoi is, like I said, a native grape
of the It's considered to be a Nati grape of
the Gulf region of the US. So it's actually found
in multiple states around the Gulf of Mexico. There's been
plantings in Georgia and in Florida that we have that
we're aware of. We also know that there were some
(10:30):
in the Carolinas. So it has a very interesting history,
some of which is speculative because there's a belief that
it might have been taken from the New World back
to the Old World for a time. And so I'm
not sure, you know, we're not one hundred percent sure
kind of where it's where it's all journeyed. But it's
(10:51):
a unique grape because it's a tenturier grape. It bleeds dark,
it gets incredibly hot sugars, so we can get easily
up to twenty eight to thirty percent sugar with the
Linook grape. It does lend itself and are there are
many styles made with it, but it definitely lends itself
(11:12):
in our perspective to a sweeter style wine, and it
makes an incredible port, and so that's my dad found
that to be the case back in the early eighties,
and so they started making a traditional port with the
Linook grape. It was incredibly successful, so it was fortified
just like you would say traditional port is fortified. But
(11:33):
then ironically TABC, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, was trying
to limit the distill it that was being shipped into
the state at the time, and so it became not
possible to get the spirits to be able to do
the fortification, and so my dad actually came up with
(11:58):
a natural fermentation method to be able to get up
to eighteen and a half percent alcohol through natural fermentation
in wine. And to our knowledge, that was the first
time that had been done in that particular style, and
so it was so well received by people because you know,
a lot of times poor drinkers in particular, you know,
(12:19):
port can have obviously, when you're talking about like a
very aged port that's been aged for twenty or thirty years,
that's incredibly smooth, beautiful wine, but a lot of the
ports that you find are fairly young, and especially considering
the fortification, that can be somewhat jarring. But natural fermentation
(12:40):
allows it to be a very different taste profile, and
it was opening the door to many other customers to
drinking ports. And this is like I said in the
mid eighties, and it was it was a huge boom.
So we've been making it the same way ever since.
We've been doing that natural fermentation style ever since then.
Almost the entire state now is still Linoi and it
(13:05):
goes into all of our port products that we make.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You actually referenced the two different types of port fermentation.
The traditional way is to add neutral spirits to the
fermented wine and then you put it in. I think
you said think of port this way in the tour
the other day you said, take port, take wine, add
ever clear, put it in the barrel and forget about it. Yes,
(13:30):
and you have port.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
So you know, we do a fun in our Hill
Country location in Fredericksburg. We actually have a small vineyard
there that we also grow leanoi and we make port.
We'll actually be going there next weekend to do that event.
We do a two day event there where we do
traditional picking. So it's a head trained vineyard. It's hand picked,
foot stomped and then fortified. So it's a very very
(13:55):
small bash that we do there every year, but it
does provide us a side by side the difference between
what natural fermentation and fortification tastes like. And so when
you add that, because you know, the brandy that's used
is normally between seventy to ninety alcohol, and it is
you know, it's brandy, it's it's distilled grapes, but it's
(14:20):
it's a pretty stiff it's a pretty stiff combination. You know.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
For our listeners that aren't familiar with how port is made,
let's just kind of go through it a little bit.
Port traditionally, first of all, wine, when you make wine,
you add yeast to the juice and that that's the wine.
But it reaches a limit of alcohol that the yeast
can't survive. Then, so to make port traditionally they add
neutral spirits, which gives that elevated alcohol level and also
(14:48):
helps preserve it. But this way that your father came
up with, I think he called it sequential fermentation. Was
that what it was.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Yeah, So basically he found a yeast that could survive
up to ninety percent alcohol. But even with that, there's
an important process yeast. You know, it behaves sometimes in
an unpredictable ways. So the best way to be able
to keep the yeast healthy and really happy fermenting all
(15:19):
the way up to eighteen and a half percent alcohol.
You add new yeast in a different at a different
points during the fermentation and we call that sequential inoculation,
but it allows fresh yeast, healthy yeast to be reintroduced
to keep the fermentation going until it's completed eighteen and
a half percent.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's so interesting, And you have a range of ports
and if they won over a one hundred and sixty awards,
you have a private reserve, Papa Pallo Barrel Reserve, Paolo Tort,
Tawny and Ebony ports to call, how how long have
you been producing the port? And hell was a little
(16:00):
bit about where first of all, where our listeners could
find the port and your wines.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
So we've been making the port since nineteen eighty one.
Technically that was a very very small batch, but so
we've been making it ever since that time, and back
then it was only the Papa Polow port. Over time,
my dad explored other methods to be able to really
(16:29):
express the fruit it comes off of these states. So,
like you mentioned, we actually make so we make three
different ruby ports. We make our powloport which is kind
of our top tier, our Papa Polo port, which is
our private reserve port, and then our barrel reserve port,
which is which is that one is the one that
(16:51):
was more more widely available, so that one's the one
that's in the in the general market at the liquor
stores and things throughout Texas. We also make a port
which is the same base grapes, but it's it goes
through a warming process. Basically, we put the the port
into barrels and we leave it outside in the Texas
(17:13):
sun and it allows the transformation of the flavors from
chocolate cherry to more like caramel, gramd cracker brown sugar
type notes. It really does change the overall taste profile
of the wine really amazingly. We also make a Selearra
sherry from our from our lnois from the estate as well,
(17:34):
which is a We have a traditional selero stack where
we do the blend down over the over the course
of years that it has. The original start date of
the current batch was twenty seventeen, so you've got a
fairly significant amount twenty seventeen still in that blend, but
that that will release every year. Most of our ports
(17:55):
are available online, so we do ship to forty two states,
so that's probably the easiest place to get it. But
then in the state of Texas we're served, but we're
sold in mini stores, you know, both liquor and grocery
depending upon the product. So you know a lot of
grocery stores and Texas are not able to sell wines
(18:17):
above seventeen or sixteen percent, so it does change, but
the same thing goes for a lot of our products.
So we make over ninety wines and most of those
are available on ourn e commerce store, about twenty about
twenty six of those are available in the broad market
in Texas specifically.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well, we want to make sure everybody has for that
website right now before we talk about your varietals. It's
Messina Hoff and it's one F SO M S S
I N A H O F dot com and you
can find all the wines there. I just want to
before we move onto the varietals. You can call it
port because you were grandfathered in before the laws changed.
If anyone's questioning that, they're approved to call it port
(19:00):
and it's still unique, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Before we get into the wines. Melanie, I want to
talk a little bit about kind of the history of
Texas grape growing and really the physical part of it,
because most of the grapes we learned in Texas are
not grown at the wineries. They're grown in a particular
area of Texas called the High Plains where there's a
lot of farming and grape growing that goes on. But
(19:22):
the wineries are all in different places in the state,
and a lot of that has to do with geography
and the fact that tourism really just doesn't get to
that region where the grapes are grown, so they put
the wineries elsewhere worthy where they can access the customers
to come get the wine. Tell us about the High Plains,
it's very unique, and the grapes that you grow there,
and then how you get them to the winery, and
(19:42):
then of course we'll talk about the varietals after that.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Absolutely, so, you know, Texas is a warm to hot
climate for sure for those that come visit us, especially
this time of the year. You know, we are pretty
regularly over one hundred degrees. So one of the really
important elements of growing in Texas is being able to
(20:09):
find areas where you know, the climate has the flexibility
to be able to sustain all the different varieties that
we've been planting. So throughout Texas, I mean you'll see
different varieties planted. I mean, like in the Gulf the
primary two are Linois blanca bois, which are two grapes
that have been found to grow very well in this
(20:29):
more humid environment down here. But the high Plains is
where about seventy percent of the grapes of Texas are grown.
It's been the Panhandle near Lubbock, so it's kind of
most of the plantings are like southwest of Lubbock. However,
there's some that are around it as well. But the
(20:50):
the region is actually up on a cap rock, so
it's up on a plateau. It's actually three thousand feet
of elevation, somewhat desert like environment. Actually, there's a lot
of similarities to the high planes to eastern Washington. In fact,
that's where we've gotten a lot of our of our
(21:10):
data research technology kind of where we've gotten a lot
of information for the best practices for a region like that.
It is a big agriculture community, it has been for
a long time, so there's a big infrastructure for agriculture
as well as expertise to understand how to mechanize how
to be able to really increase the number of acres
(21:34):
needed for the great prop on scale. And also, I
mean almost every one of our growers that we have
and that we work with and partner with started off
in other agricultural commodities and made the decision based upon
the success of grapes growing up there too to shift
(21:55):
over to great growing at least in some extent to
what does they do. So part of the reason why
the High Planes is a great growing region is number
one because the elevation. Because of the desert like environment,
you actually really get a nice day night temperature change
which allows the grapes to rest at night. Even when
it can get up to over one hundred grees during
(22:16):
the day, it's not unusual for you to see a
thirty degree drop during at night. And that means that
you can retain your assets better in the grapes that
are grown up there, and you know that is one
of the challenges for a hot growing region, so that
definitely helps. The water quality is incredible, so they don't
(22:37):
get a whole lot of rain, which means that you
can do organic grape growing. We don't really have like
a dedicated standard for that yet in the state, but
I think that that's going to be the region that
you're going to see organic, great growing happen. And it
also allows you to really tightly control your water that
(22:57):
goes to the grapes, meaning but you get incredible concentration
of flavor. You combine that with the wonderful sunlight that
we get in the heat, you get very ripe fruit
that's concentrated in flavor and color and a really good
growing region. So that's kind of the I would say
that the short version of why it is that it's
(23:19):
it's a thriving area. I think the Hill Country has
a lot of name recognition because of the fact that
there's so many wineries that have opened there. But I
want to say it only makes up about twelve to
fifteen percent of the plantings of actual grapes in Texas.
But it is it is a beautiful area of the state,
and you do have a lot of like limestone and
things like that in the Hill Country and in the
(23:40):
high Plains, it's it's sand loam and there's a calcareous
soil base and a lot of the venders up there, So.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
We want to just note that you source one of
your grapes from two Texas. Yes, but they're not all
a state grown. They's sourced from all over Texas. But
that's important in terms of labeling the wines because can
Texas produce other Texas producers source outside of the state,
(24:14):
or do all Texas wine producers have to source within
the state.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Now there they can source from outside the state. We
fall you know, the vast majority of US states just
default back to general federal standards in terms of labeling,
which allows them to source some percentage outside of the state.
To know, fairly small percentage, but normally that helps with
(24:41):
hard years or needs to you know, blend or whatever
that may be. You know, we've made the decision to
stick with one hundred percent within Texas. It hasn't always
been the case where there was enough fruit to be
able to supply the wineries of Texas. Over the last
ten to twelve years, we've seen a lot of plantings
(25:02):
happen that have allowed us to be able to get
to the point where we have enough fruit to supply
the wineries in Texas. But there are some that don't. Yeah,
that is.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
True interesting because it is a tough climate and you know,
subject to a lot of swings. Let's talk about the
range of varieties and varietals you produced. When we attended
a wine tasting in New York several years ago hosted
(25:33):
by I guess the Texas Department of Agriculture or something
like that, that we were surprised at how many varietals
there were, and particularly a lot, you know, and some
really stood out, like the Rhone varrietals at Messina Hoff.
You also produce an impressive range of We talked about
the port but you've got the sparkling, the still whites,
(25:55):
and the reds, and we tasted several. Let's talk about
some of the standouts and why they work well in
the area where you're growing them.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
And the labels, well, they're online babies, so you know,
it's hard to pick one over the other. But the
you know, we work with thirty one varieties of grapes,
but there are over one hundred and twenty varieties planted
in Texas. I think a lot of that is because
that our environment and the size of our state. We're
(26:29):
bigger than France as a state, we're bigger than Germany
in terms of size, and so the diversity of Tehrawa
is extreme and kind of going back to the growing
region thing, what kind of to circle back on that
real quick. One thing that is, I would say a
(26:52):
little bit because of the fact that we are still
young industry. We only have eight avas of Texas compared
to whatever it's like one hundred and eighty in California
or whatever the number is, it's ridiculously high. That's not
because we don't have more growing regions that are great.
It's because we're still in the experimental process. So I
(27:12):
think a lot of the reasons why you see people
planting the wide diversity of different varieties and is because
we feel like we've had a lot of success, but
I think that there's still many more that can be
successful in Texas. One particular story that I think speaks
really well to that is our pioneering of Sagraentino in
(27:35):
the United States. It's a variety that is fairly fairly
unknown in general obviously, and your wine somier type community,
there's going to be more awareness than the general public.
But came from a small region in Umbria in northeast
of Rome, was almost not planted at all in the
(27:58):
US except for a few small vineyards. We brought it
here and planted, started producing and have found it to
be incredibly strong for growing in Texas and now we're
the largest producer of sagartina in the United States. That
all happened within a twelve year period. So there's been
(28:19):
a lot of stories like that. And I do think
that there is truth to the fact that Mediterranean varietals
in particular, whether that be Spain or southern France or Italy,
have shown to grow incredibly well. But there were not
just limited to that. I think that like Caeberne and Sauvignon,
for example, has been one of the most consistent in
(28:41):
the state in terms of year after year producing good
quality fruit. So I personally am and Karen we we do.
We do lean a little bit in terms of our
personal preference to Italian varieties. So you have seen over
the last eight years we've we have shifted quite a
bit to Italian focus. That's not just because we think
(29:03):
that they grow well, but it is it is a
little bit of a of a one maker preference and
a little bit of kind of speaking back to that
Italian heritage that we'd like to be able to do
experimentation with that, but I think we've only just begun
to see what Texas can grow and what varieties are
going to be successful here.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Well, I think you can't measure really in the first
couple of decades of the success of the state just
where you're going to be right. You have to you
have to learn by you have to learn as you
go along, and it takes time. One of the things
that I found really interesting was you also have a
couple of grapes that are considered cool climate, like reesling, Yeah,
(29:43):
grows really well in Texas as well. And you make
a wonderful example of that at Messinahoff.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Very good off dry Raisline. We're very impressed by it.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Thank you. Yeah, And I find that, you know, there's
some varieties that are cool climate grapes that that stress
under the heat, but there's others like recingly is a
great example of the fact that like the vine grows
well the fruit. It's always funny to have the conversation
(30:16):
because actually the first Texas wine to ever win a
ninety in the Wine Spectator was our Angel reestling, So
it's a late it was a late harvest reestling, and
that was back in nineteen ninety. It doesn't, you know,
whenever you have the general consumer. Obviously, Germany is incredibly
well known for reestling a very cool climate in the
(30:36):
in the in the regions it's grown, so the reason
tastes incredibly different. It's a very different profile than what
you would consider from your kind of old world reestling regions.
But it's really good. It's just it's just different. And
I think it took us a while to come to
to wrap our arms around owning the fact that, hey,
(30:58):
if it grows well and it tastes different, as you know,
as long as that style is in line with what
we're shooting for and the and the customer loves it,
then I think that's a major win. And we have
a special style of recent that we make so it works.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
You also make some beautiful sparkling wines which tend to
you know, do well with cool climate. We had the
sparkling Brute and you make We didn't try the sparkling
almond demisec, but it sounds really interesting. I was also
impressed Karen and Paul and David, like you make a
temporneo so you know, you represent all the countries, you know,
(31:34):
the great wine producers, kind of you've got Tempernello, you've
got a Premativa. Speaking of Italian, you mentioned the the
Cabernet franc Uh It's quite a range, and then I
mentioned the Rhan varietals. Quite a range. And what's interesting
is that you can get them all online. I want
to make sure we want to make sure we bring
(31:56):
Karen into the conversation and talk about the experience, because
a lot of you or selling and marketing is based
on your hospitality.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
But first, Karen, and it is a family affair.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
And it is a family affair. Karen. Yes, you've actually
come from a law background. You really were planting to
work in the law business and we're working in Washington.
When how did you meet Paul and how did this
all come about?
Speaker 5 (32:23):
Well, I always have to go back, and I always
have to admit early that I'm not technically a Textan
in my birth, but I am here, not leaving. But
I grew up outside of Philadelphia originally, and my mom's
side is all Italian. In fact, pat that side comes
from Sicily on the other side of the island. Actually,
So that concept of community and family and food and
(32:45):
wine was sort of there, but not in an academic,
not a professional standpoint, just as an appreciation ellowen. And
I always wanted to I always wanted to go to
school and be an attorney or maybe work for the government,
to do something in federal Uh. So I ended up
going to school in Washington, d C. At George Washington
(33:07):
University and studying political science and history and working in
law firms in high school and in college, and uh,
you know, the Lord has a funny way of lining
things up. But I ended up meeting Paul very kind
of randomly in in Washington, d C. Is like what
we like to say. And so he was at the
Naval Academy in Annapolis, and he was about to commission
(33:29):
in the Marine Corps. And uh and so I sped
up all my schooling pretty quickly to be able to
graduate earlier, knowing that the Marine Corps was going to
move us wherever they were going to move us, which
was fine.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
So we were in uh we were in Virginia for
a little bit and then North Carolina. Uh And while
we were North Carolina, while he was doing his active
duty deployments and things, I'd worked for an attorney down
there too, which was great, and they were like a
second family to me. So I like paperwork and like numbers,
I like keeping things organized. But I've always loved eating.
I've always loved wine. I've always loved the hospitality element.
(34:04):
I worked in a restaurant in high school, so I've
always appreciated that. And so meeting Paul and then eventually
finding out that his parents had a winery, which didn't
exactly sink in until I visited for the first time
and realized he was He wasn't kidding. This is like
a real This is a real winery. And I didn't
know anything about Texas wine at the time when we
(34:26):
first met, but I tried to learn as much as possible,
and we had the luxury of being able to work
with Paul's parents even when he was in the Marine Corps.
I got a chance to kind of listen to them
and learn from them. And then when we moved back
in twenty ten after he was finished in the military,
then we did everything together, and so I naturally fell
(34:49):
into all the paperwork with the winery. So my day job,
I liked to joke, is the chief administrative officer so
I'm over HR and accounting and marketing and e commerce
membership and things. But the fun stuff is being able
to connect to the education and do all the wine
pairing programs, goood wine pairing programs in a lot of
(35:10):
our culinary programs that we have here, which is the
fun part, albeit still very useful. So we have a
nice balance between the wine making side and then the
eating and exploring side. That's that's been quite fun to
be able to continue over the years.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well before we talk about that, Paul, thank you for
your service, because you did active duty wear.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
So I was stationed in North Carolina at Campbell journ
deployed to our ereck twice, in Nigeria once.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
So that's a And your father also was deployed and
was in the services as well.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Right, well, he never deployed, but he was in He
was stationed at Oakland Naval Hospital, so he actually was
there at the tail end of Vietnam and so he
actually wound up treating quite a few of the wounded
soldiers as they came back in the country.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
And so your parents decided to quote and I'm saying
this with quote, retire and then travel more. And they
handed the reins to the next generation, which is very
typical the wine family, and this is a family. We
had the honor of meeting your parents. They came and
visited with everybody at the port event. Karen, you talked
about how you divide duties, pull you oversee the operations
(36:30):
and the wine making. So it's a great team. There's
a lot to manage. You've got the Brian property. It's
not just a winery. There's a hotel, which we want
to talk about, a restaurant, a very active I think,
as you said seven how many people are in the
wine club seven thousand, absolutely, yeah, seven thousand members. In
(36:53):
fact that it's so successful that your father said he
was advising overseas other wine companies on how to have
wine clubs. It's as successful. But you also have tasting
rooms to facilities in grapevine and hill country country. Yeah,
So talk about the experience because the great thing is,
as we know, you can visit these properties, which is
(37:16):
the best way to experience Texas wine and hospitality. Talk
to us about it.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
Absolutely so. Texans are very hospitable people, which I think
is part of the reason why the industry has expanded
the way that it has and has had this kind
of exponential growth. Is we tend to be curious, and
driving three hours to anything is really not challenging here
in Texas, and so you're used to kind of driving
around and exploring and being connected to things that are
(37:43):
agriculture related. So the wineries in Texas have had a
great opportunity to be able to tell their story and
teach people a lot about what it is that's growing
different places and wine making styles that they have, and
kind of what their philosophy is. And Paul parents started
that very early on. They realized very quickly in the
(38:04):
early eighties that people were curious and wanted to find
out more information, and so the best way to be
able to turn them into wine lovers was to be
able to just sit down at a table and be
able to really just break things down in an easy
to digest fashion about what's happening with wine and what
was happening in the glass, and then if you can
(38:25):
connect that with food or other experiences, then it makes
it even even easier to understand, notwithstanding more memorable as well.
So for us here at the estate, we have a
lot of hospitality elements that are now going on at
any given time between the villa and bed and breakfast,
between the vin Chau's restaurant, between any of the tours
(38:46):
that we're doing. We have the production space here. We
do a lot of events, both private and then in house,
a lot of wine education, lots of big dinners and
things like that murder mystery dinners, all sorts of things
that are incorporating food together and really playing on that
food wine pairing concept. And then at the other locations,
(39:06):
we expanded very quickly after we came back across to
multiple other locations in the state to be able to
meet people closer to their front door essentially, So the
Fred Expert location opened up at twenty eleven with cottages
back there so people could stay. Plus the winery and
the vineyard may have an urban winery concept being grapevine
(39:29):
which allows us to be able to do a lot
of events and a lot of different things in the
Dallas Fort Worth market and that's been an awesome addition.
And then we opened up our most recent location outside
of Houston, actually in Richmond. It's called Messina Hoff Harvest
Green Winery and Kitchen, and it has a full restaurant
similar to what we have here at the estate where
(39:50):
they do what we call vineyard cuisine, so we cook
with wine and every dish that we make to be
able to again create these really easy to be easy
to understand and very approachable ways to be able to
explore wine on a kind of a different level. So
all four locations are constantly doing different activities and having
people come in, you know, kind of seven days a
(40:11):
week for the most part, which has been great, especially
as people are traveling in and out of Texas from
out of state or all over the world. It's been
it's been neat to be able to showcase what's happening
in the industry to captivated audience.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
That's a lot to it's a lot to manage it
and a lot a lot to handle, but you folks
do it very well and with a lot of grace
as well, and a lot of humor, which is which
is always nice for the people to come to see you. Yeah,
I want to give a shout out to the chef Ezekiel,
who's also who it works with you. He also comes
from a naval background if I remember correctly, and he's
(40:47):
from the Philippines. But he's a great guy and lived
in Hawaii, lived in Hawaii as well and worked for
some of the great chefs in Hawaii before he came
to the mainland and started working for you guys. Why
don't you tell us a little bit about him and
the food at the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Vintage Houn's Restaurant, which is a beautiful facility for meals
and also private events. And we did you know, we
tasted a beautiful tasted wines with the food exactly.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
So the Vintage House restaurant, originally opened in nineteen ninety five,
is kind of a teaching kitchen for like cooking parties
and things like that. But then we started doing alli
cart service the next year. So the concept has always
been based on vinyard cuisine, so cooking with wine and
every dish, every recipe, regardless of whether it's an appetizer, soup,
or salad, dressing or whatever that would be. And then again,
(41:31):
the goal is to create wine and food affinities and
be able to create combinations that make what I like
to say is a two plus two equals five moment
where you have something that really gets to be quite
spectacular when you combine them together. So Zeke has done
a great job. Here's our chef here, and in fact,
his wife is our general manager here. Didn't do that
(41:53):
on purpose necessarily, but they we know how that husband
and wife team thing goes, and those can actually be
the best. So they both have a hospitality background and
they love being able to explore all the things that
are associated with the different varieties and the different wine
styles and then how do we express that with foods
(42:13):
in ways that really honor both sides, both the culinary
ingredients and then also the wine itself. So his background
has allowed us to be able to showcase a lot
of different cuisine types. We feature them a lot in
our Cooking Party with the Chef, which is a monthly
program that we do here at the Vintage House where
they get the guests get a recipe book and we
(42:36):
cook right in front of them, teach them how to
actually make the things, and then of course it's a
three course lunch and there's wine parents and things like that,
so they get a chance to be able to hopefully
go back and try those those things as well. But
those are usually very theme towards different countries or different
cuisine style, different holiday periods or whatever it may be,
(42:58):
where you get a chance to be able to showky
all sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Well, what's interesting just to give our listeners an idea
when you say the dishes have wine incorporated, you know,
Mama Rosa meatballs named after Rose Bonerigo, Mama who has
a rose garden named after her. It's made with a
Merlow MARINERA. David had a steak salad with port mustard
(43:23):
glaze top sirloin and it was delicious. I particularly liked
the honey crusted baked ricotta with Gertz mnor herbed honey
and toasted chibata. And of course you recommend pairings with
these dishes. My salmon was black and with a Vina
cream sauce. So it's interesting to see how each dish
(43:48):
incorporates wine. And of course there is a pairing and
we had a great time tasting through many wines. I
think we did two sparkling, a few whites, and several reds,
and it was a great way to get the scope
of everything. And then separately you did this really great
port party where we had the ports and we also
(44:08):
had pork cocktails, which were delicious and really exciting. We
stayed on at Messina Hoff there is a lovely Ben
and Breakfast as well and what was needed, but we
stayed in the Romeo and Juliet room. So all the
rooms are named after like lovers or people. And the
(44:30):
detail is interesting because your parents love to go to
flea markets and the state sales and they tend to
buy stuff and bring it back and decorate the winery. Right.
Speaker 5 (44:39):
Yes, they've collected things over the years when they started
trying to showcase Texas wine across the state to restaurants
and do presentations with distributors and different things like that,
and you just you know, go to festivals where they
could present the wine. Their hobby along the way was
to kind of stop at antique shops and state sales
(45:00):
anything else while they were driving through, and so they
amassed quite a bit of things that they found. They
do seem to find them for really good deals in
really interesting places with really interesting background stories. So the
Villa Ben and Breakfast specifically is kind of covered in
all sorts of antiques that they've picked up along the way,
(45:21):
and that also there's quite a few family heirloom pieces
from both sides of the family that are that have
been incorporated in as well. So it makes for very eclectic,
you know, kind of look and feel traditional, but also
a little unexpected to be able to honor that history
wherever it may be, wherever it came from.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Well, I think one of the unexpected things for me
was when I asked your mom where the front doors
to the villa came from, and she said, oh, they
were Louis.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Pasteurs, you know, and and there was some interesting Venetian
fabrics tapestry. I mean, it really is a colectic and
we're talking about not just going to like a Texas
estate hill, going around the world. It was a lot
of fun and there was a lot of picture taking
(46:10):
to be had, and we really loved it. The grape
stomp was really fun. It was you know, just to
take our listeners through it. First of all, kudos to you, Paul,
and to your team and the port presentation for really
educating in a way that didn't talk down or get
too geeky to the audience. I thought that was like,
really really good protecting In the port one, I was like,
(46:31):
you know, port can be complicated to explain to people,
and he did it in a great way that resonated.
But you know, everybody gathered we did a presentation we
signed all our documents and then we did a tour,
walked through the vineyards and for me it was my
first time actually clipping grapes off of vine I know,
you've just an old soul led it, David.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Not something I've ever really liked to do.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
But he's done it. You know, for anyone that thinks
it's romantic and wants to go work a harvest, it
can be very backing. It was fun for like the
thirty minutes we did it, but I said, I cannot
imagine in that incredible prairie Texas heat in Texas doing it,
you know, for long days when you are in harvest,
do you bring in trust some may a lot of
(47:15):
people get in and their their staff expands. Where do
you get your harvesting people from other than the people
who sign up to go to the harvest festival?
Speaker 4 (47:24):
Well, you know we do so the estate harvest of
the of the twenty acres. Normally the public participates in
picking about I would say three or four acres of
that sok. But it definitely is is meant to be
that kind of short taste of the tradition of hand
(47:46):
picking grapes, and so it's fun educational experience and kind
of getting behind the scenes. But in terms of my team,
so we do try to because of the because of
the operation that we run, you know, we don't really
do very much see all employment. We will get you know,
interns from A and M and from other colleges that
(48:06):
want to learn about whether it be a bit of
culture analogy that will come for the for the duration
of their internship, so that that there's some seasonality to that.
You know, Unfortunately their school starts or their internships end
normally like right in the middle of our harvest. But
but you know that so that from that side, it's
(48:26):
very cool to be able to connect with people and
teach them, especially people that are considering getting into the
wine industry. And that would actually apply to our overall staff,
our hospitality staff. The vast majority of them are are
are our students, and so you know, they may only
be with us for a few years as they're doing
their education and then they move on, but we we
(48:49):
see it as a long term connection opportunity to you know,
many of them wear their first wine experience. Uh, they
learn about wine with us, they gain an appreciation for it,
not just as a beverage, but as a cultural piece,
how it integrates with food and all the different elements
of life. And so then when they leave here, they
(49:10):
go off and many times you know, whether their career
is hospitality related or not, there's a piece of wine
that follows them always, which is I think is very cool.
Plus we do have people who are going to be
some lie's and so forth that it's also kind of
a cool thing.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Well, you really have an extended family and it's wonderful
that you reach into the community and have done so
much for Texas. Again, we've been talking with one of
the first families of Texas wine, the bonto Rigo family
is of Messina Hoff. Paul and Karen, thank you for
joining us on the Connected Table, and thank you again
for your warm Texas hospitality.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
Thank you, yes, thank you. Love to having y'all.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Well for anyone listening, we hope you take a chance
and go visit the great state of Texas. I know
we'll be back to explore more and learn more about
Texas wines. And you can learn more about Messina Hooff
at Messinahoff dot com. And of course you know, for us,
it was just underscored our theme of this show when
we went to Texas, Brian, Texas never been really great
(50:13):
home of the Aggie's, got to put that in. It
is a terrific place, and so we remind you when
you travel, stay insatiably curious. Thank you,
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
enjoy traveling the world to bring you the dynamic people
we meet who work front and center and behind the
scenes in wine, food, spirits and hospitality. We love their
stories with you and recommending where to go, what to drink,
(01:03):
and what to eat. And we're really excited because we,
as you all know, we've moved to New Orleans, which
means we're very close to the great state of Texas
and we plan to explore Texas more. It's a very
dynamic wine producing state.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It's number five in the country production.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It's like the largest a large state and has I
think it was over five hundred wineries, seven hundred wineries,
so it's like fairly significant and a wide range of
wines produced. We had the honor of being hosted by
one of the oldest wineries in the great State of Texas.
In fact, they're known as the first family of Texas Wine.
(01:44):
It's Messina Hoff, established in nineteen seventy seven by the
Bonarigo family. We attended their annual harvest festival in Brian, Texas.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
What a fun time it was.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It was so much fun. We stopped grapes you can
find it on the Connected Table Instagram, and we tasted
a lot of wines and got to know the folks
and family of Messina Hoff and also some wonderful people
at Destination Brian who brought us over. We got to
learn about Brian, Texas and College Station and Give which.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Is where Texas A and M is the home.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Of the Aggy Aggie Land and so we got to
eat some really terrific food, but the wines were really terrific.
So we are honored to have on our show today,
Paul and Karen Bonarigo Paul's father, Hawlo Senior and his
wife Merrill founded Messina Hoff and we met them as well.
(02:40):
They've handled all over the reins to Paul and Karen
who showed us around and gave us a tour and
we had lunch that tasted a lot of wine. So
we're going to share their story today on the Connected table. Welcome,
good morning, thank you. Well, first of all, we know
it's a busy time, so thank you for I think
(03:00):
you're doing your fourth harvest festival weekend.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Wrapping it up this weekend, Yes, the fourth weekend of
our state harvest festival.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, and this is like over one hundred and fifty
people were there right when we were.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
There on the last Saturday week one and almost one
hundred and ninety people come on Saturday that for that event.
And then of course we had the event on Friday
night as well. We had about ninety people for that.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
That's incredible. So let's you know, we always like to
start about the background Messina Hoff. Let's just talk about
the name and the heritage behind that and how your family,
where your family came from, and how they arrived in
Texas and where they settled initially.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Absolutely, so the Messina Hoff story is a combination of
Messina Sicily and half Germany. That is where my family
comes from. So my father's side, which is the wine
making side of the family, comes from a Sina Sicily,
a little village outside of out of a Messina called
what Tero. And in our home village, they were the
(04:10):
wine making family. They made the wine for the community.
They grew the grapes and made the wine. My grandfather
immigrated to New York and tried to make a basically
wanting to make a home in the US, and my
dad was born there. He joined the Navy as a
physical therapist and that journey took him to California for
(04:31):
a time or actually he got a chance to do
some interning to learn a little kind of start up
his wine knowledge, and then eventually ended his time in
the Navy and settled here in Brian as the director
of physical therapy for Saint Joseph Hospital. So that's that's
why he came to Brian, Texas and New Yorker coming
(04:52):
down to the Great State of Texas. And then my
mom's side originally from Hulf Germany. They're more beer people,
but but they're now they're now wine people. They actually
came to the US many generations ago, were actually part
of the early German settlers to Texas, you know, as
(05:13):
Fredericksberg is a huge German community there. They actually participated
with the building of that community and then eventually moved
to the Houston area to start a brick factory and
then eventually settled in this in this area around Bryan.
So my mom, my mom was born in Brian, grew
up here, and I went to Texas a and m
(05:35):
That's kind of how that's how both of the different
sides of the family got to Brian and and that's
the name messina Off is the combination of those two cultures.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So how did your parents meet. They were in different careers. Okay,
at the time you said your father was a physical
therapy and like him, you also served with the Navy,
and your mom was in real estate at the time,
right exactly.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
So my mom was in real estate and my dad,
he had been in the community for a few years
but was looking to sell us home and so my
mom was his realtor. And the funny part of the
story was is that you know, you never know how
things work out, and my dad had this dog that
would attack everybody that came to the house, and so
(06:23):
it was a very challenging sale from my mom. I
wound up spending a lot more time with each other
and ironically that extra time they fell in love and
they wound up getting married. So it's kind of a
funny romance story. But then so they got married, they
bought what's now our state in so they married nineteen
seventy seven. They bought the property in nineteen seventy seven,
(06:46):
in early nineteen seventy seven, and with you know, at
the time, really no vision that this was going to
be a winery or a vineyard. That we were way
out in the country back back then, and so they
were just looking for a homestead to be able to
call their own, and very humble beginnings. They had little
(07:07):
mobile home out here, and my dad had a patient
by the name of Roner, by the name of Ron Perry,
who was doing a great feasibility study with TEXA, A
and M. And basically what they were trying to determine
at the time, there was a lot of data about
native grape growing and TV Munson had done a ton
(07:28):
of rootstock research in Texas and actually, ironically Texas roots
were used in his process to save the French industry
from Flocstra. So there was this history of being able
to grow well here. The question was just what vidus
benefita would grow in Texas and where is the best
(07:50):
place to plant? Which is the purpose of that study
that was being done. And ironically it just happened that
Ron was my dad's patient, and he said, you know,
my dad had told the story of the family and
kind of the tradition, which our tradition is the firstborn
son of each of each generations named Paul, it takes
over the winemaking for the generation. Obviously, when my when
(08:12):
my family moved to the US, Prohibition was in full swing,
so the kind of the winemaking heritage stopped with my
grandfather coming to the US. But Ron asked my dad,
he said, you've got this heritage, wouldn't it be cool
to participate in this project? And my dad agreed, and
so they planted an experimental vineyard here on the estate,
(08:32):
which really that was the beginnings of of of everything
that's happened between then and now. They had success with
the with the vineyard. They found Linoir to be the
grape that thrived on this site, which is a native
grape of Texas. But from all from all the research,
they they really dictated what what would be planted for
(08:55):
the next thirty years across the state of Sexis. So
it was a very important study that was done. My
parents bought some milk tanks and some whiskey barrels and
started making some small bash of wine and had some
success with it, started growing and a little bit over time,
they planted more and more acres until the mid eighties
(09:17):
when they had planted out about eighteen acres at that time,
and they built out the kind of the hospitality centers
here on the estate to try to make it a destination,
whether we have our tasting room, our restaurant, and our
bed and breakfast here at the estate. And that's kind
of how they continued to grow until, you know, until
(09:40):
the twenty ten whenever I actually rejoined the family business
to start working on it.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So what's interesting is the depth and breadth of wines
you produced, not only in Texas but at Massine Hawk.
You referenced leun Want, which is black Spanish. Let's talk
about that grape because we that's the one we stopped. Yes,
that is what we stopped and let's talk about what
you make with it.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Absolutely, so Linoi is, like I said, a native grape
of the It's considered to be a Nati grape of
the Gulf region of the US. So it's actually found
in multiple states around the Gulf of Mexico. There's been
plantings in Georgia and in Florida that we have that
we're aware of. We also know that there were some
(10:30):
in the Carolinas. So it has a very interesting history,
some of which is speculative because there's a belief that
it might have been taken from the New World back
to the Old World for a time. And so I'm
not sure, you know, we're not one hundred percent sure
kind of where it's where it's all journeyed. But it's
(10:51):
a unique grape because it's a tenturier grape. It bleeds dark,
it gets incredibly hot sugars, so we can get easily
up to twenty eight to thirty percent sugar with the
Linook grape. It does lend itself and are there are
many styles made with it, but it definitely lends itself
(11:12):
in our perspective to a sweeter style wine, and it
makes an incredible port, and so that's my dad found
that to be the case back in the early eighties,
and so they started making a traditional port with the
Linook grape. It was incredibly successful, so it was fortified
just like you would say traditional port is fortified. But
(11:33):
then ironically TABC, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, was trying
to limit the distill it that was being shipped into
the state at the time, and so it became not
possible to get the spirits to be able to do
the fortification, and so my dad actually came up with
(11:58):
a natural fermentation method to be able to get up
to eighteen and a half percent alcohol through natural fermentation
in wine. And to our knowledge, that was the first
time that had been done in that particular style, and
so it was so well received by people because you know,
a lot of times poor drinkers in particular, you know,
(12:19):
port can have obviously, when you're talking about like a
very aged port that's been aged for twenty or thirty years,
that's incredibly smooth, beautiful wine, but a lot of the
ports that you find are fairly young, and especially considering
the fortification, that can be somewhat jarring. But natural fermentation
(12:40):
allows it to be a very different taste profile, and
it was opening the door to many other customers to
drinking ports. And this is like I said in the
mid eighties, and it was it was a huge boom.
So we've been making it the same way ever since.
We've been doing that natural fermentation style ever since then.
Almost the entire state now is still Linoi and it
(13:05):
goes into all of our port products that we make.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You actually referenced the two different types of port fermentation.
The traditional way is to add neutral spirits to the
fermented wine and then you put it in. I think
you said think of port this way in the tour
the other day you said, take port, take wine, add
ever clear, put it in the barrel and forget about it. Yes,
(13:30):
and you have port.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
So you know, we do a fun in our Hill
Country location in Fredericksburg. We actually have a small vineyard
there that we also grow leanoi and we make port.
We'll actually be going there next weekend to do that event.
We do a two day event there where we do
traditional picking. So it's a head trained vineyard. It's hand picked,
foot stomped and then fortified. So it's a very very
(13:55):
small bash that we do there every year, but it
does provide us a side by side the difference between
what natural fermentation and fortification tastes like. And so when
you add that, because you know, the brandy that's used
is normally between seventy to ninety alcohol, and it is
you know, it's brandy, it's it's distilled grapes, but it's
(14:20):
it's a pretty stiff it's a pretty stiff combination. You know.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
For our listeners that aren't familiar with how port is made,
let's just kind of go through it a little bit.
Port traditionally, first of all, wine, when you make wine,
you add yeast to the juice and that that's the wine.
But it reaches a limit of alcohol that the yeast
can't survive. Then, so to make port traditionally they add
neutral spirits, which gives that elevated alcohol level and also
(14:48):
helps preserve it. But this way that your father came
up with, I think he called it sequential fermentation. Was
that what it was.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Yeah, So basically he found a yeast that could survive
up to ninety percent alcohol. But even with that, there's
an important process yeast. You know, it behaves sometimes in
an unpredictable ways. So the best way to be able
to keep the yeast healthy and really happy fermenting all
(15:19):
the way up to eighteen and a half percent alcohol.
You add new yeast in a different at a different
points during the fermentation and we call that sequential inoculation,
but it allows fresh yeast, healthy yeast to be reintroduced
to keep the fermentation going until it's completed eighteen and
a half percent.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's so interesting, And you have a range of ports
and if they won over a one hundred and sixty awards,
you have a private reserve, Papa Pallo Barrel Reserve, Paolo Tort,
Tawny and Ebony ports to call, how how long have
you been producing the port? And hell was a little
(16:00):
bit about where first of all, where our listeners could
find the port and your wines.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
So we've been making the port since nineteen eighty one.
Technically that was a very very small batch, but so
we've been making it ever since that time, and back
then it was only the Papa Polow port. Over time,
my dad explored other methods to be able to really
(16:29):
express the fruit it comes off of these states. So,
like you mentioned, we actually make so we make three
different ruby ports. We make our powloport which is kind
of our top tier, our Papa Polo port, which is
our private reserve port, and then our barrel reserve port,
which is which is that one is the one that
(16:51):
was more more widely available, so that one's the one
that's in the in the general market at the liquor
stores and things throughout Texas. We also make a port
which is the same base grapes, but it's it goes
through a warming process. Basically, we put the the port
into barrels and we leave it outside in the Texas
(17:13):
sun and it allows the transformation of the flavors from
chocolate cherry to more like caramel, gramd cracker brown sugar
type notes. It really does change the overall taste profile
of the wine really amazingly. We also make a Selearra
sherry from our from our lnois from the estate as well,
(17:34):
which is a We have a traditional selero stack where
we do the blend down over the over the course
of years that it has. The original start date of
the current batch was twenty seventeen, so you've got a
fairly significant amount twenty seventeen still in that blend, but
that that will release every year. Most of our ports
(17:55):
are available online, so we do ship to forty two states,
so that's probably the easiest place to get it. But
then in the state of Texas we're served, but we're
sold in mini stores, you know, both liquor and grocery
depending upon the product. So you know a lot of
grocery stores and Texas are not able to sell wines
(18:17):
above seventeen or sixteen percent, so it does change, but
the same thing goes for a lot of our products.
So we make over ninety wines and most of those
are available on ourn e commerce store, about twenty about
twenty six of those are available in the broad market
in Texas specifically.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well, we want to make sure everybody has for that
website right now before we talk about your varietals. It's
Messina Hoff and it's one F SO M S S
I N A H O F dot com and you
can find all the wines there. I just want to
before we move onto the varietals. You can call it
port because you were grandfathered in before the laws changed.
If anyone's questioning that, they're approved to call it port
(19:00):
and it's still unique, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Before we get into the wines. Melanie, I want to
talk a little bit about kind of the history of
Texas grape growing and really the physical part of it,
because most of the grapes we learned in Texas are
not grown at the wineries. They're grown in a particular
area of Texas called the High Plains where there's a
lot of farming and grape growing that goes on. But
(19:22):
the wineries are all in different places in the state,
and a lot of that has to do with geography
and the fact that tourism really just doesn't get to
that region where the grapes are grown, so they put
the wineries elsewhere worthy where they can access the customers
to come get the wine. Tell us about the High Plains,
it's very unique, and the grapes that you grow there,
and then how you get them to the winery, and
(19:42):
then of course we'll talk about the varietals after that.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Absolutely, so, you know, Texas is a warm to hot
climate for sure for those that come visit us, especially
this time of the year. You know, we are pretty
regularly over one hundred degrees. So one of the really
important elements of growing in Texas is being able to
(20:09):
find areas where you know, the climate has the flexibility
to be able to sustain all the different varieties that
we've been planting. So throughout Texas, I mean you'll see
different varieties planted. I mean, like in the Gulf the
primary two are Linois blanca bois, which are two grapes
that have been found to grow very well in this
(20:29):
more humid environment down here. But the high Plains is
where about seventy percent of the grapes of Texas are grown.
It's been the Panhandle near Lubbock, so it's kind of
most of the plantings are like southwest of Lubbock. However,
there's some that are around it as well. But the
(20:50):
the region is actually up on a cap rock, so
it's up on a plateau. It's actually three thousand feet
of elevation, somewhat desert like environment. Actually, there's a lot
of similarities to the high planes to eastern Washington. In fact,
that's where we've gotten a lot of our of our
(21:10):
data research technology kind of where we've gotten a lot
of information for the best practices for a region like that.
It is a big agriculture community, it has been for
a long time, so there's a big infrastructure for agriculture
as well as expertise to understand how to mechanize how
to be able to really increase the number of acres
(21:34):
needed for the great prop on scale. And also, I
mean almost every one of our growers that we have
and that we work with and partner with started off
in other agricultural commodities and made the decision based upon
the success of grapes growing up there too to shift
(21:55):
over to great growing at least in some extent to
what does they do. So part of the reason why
the High Planes is a great growing region is number
one because the elevation. Because of the desert like environment,
you actually really get a nice day night temperature change
which allows the grapes to rest at night. Even when
it can get up to over one hundred grees during
(22:16):
the day, it's not unusual for you to see a
thirty degree drop during at night. And that means that
you can retain your assets better in the grapes that
are grown up there, and you know that is one
of the challenges for a hot growing region, so that
definitely helps. The water quality is incredible, so they don't
(22:37):
get a whole lot of rain, which means that you
can do organic grape growing. We don't really have like
a dedicated standard for that yet in the state, but
I think that that's going to be the region that
you're going to see organic, great growing happen. And it
also allows you to really tightly control your water that
(22:57):
goes to the grapes, meaning but you get incredible concentration
of flavor. You combine that with the wonderful sunlight that
we get in the heat, you get very ripe fruit
that's concentrated in flavor and color and a really good
growing region. So that's kind of the I would say
that the short version of why it is that it's
(23:19):
it's a thriving area. I think the Hill Country has
a lot of name recognition because of the fact that
there's so many wineries that have opened there. But I
want to say it only makes up about twelve to
fifteen percent of the plantings of actual grapes in Texas.
But it is it is a beautiful area of the state,
and you do have a lot of like limestone and
things like that in the Hill Country and in the
(23:40):
high Plains, it's it's sand loam and there's a calcareous
soil base and a lot of the venders up there, So.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
We want to just note that you source one of
your grapes from two Texas. Yes, but they're not all
a state grown. They's sourced from all over Texas. But
that's important in terms of labeling the wines because can
Texas produce other Texas producers source outside of the state,
(24:14):
or do all Texas wine producers have to source within
the state.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Now there they can source from outside the state. We
fall you know, the vast majority of US states just
default back to general federal standards in terms of labeling,
which allows them to source some percentage outside of the state.
To know, fairly small percentage, but normally that helps with
(24:41):
hard years or needs to you know, blend or whatever
that may be. You know, we've made the decision to
stick with one hundred percent within Texas. It hasn't always
been the case where there was enough fruit to be
able to supply the wineries of Texas. Over the last
ten to twelve years, we've seen a lot of plantings
(25:02):
happen that have allowed us to be able to get
to the point where we have enough fruit to supply
the wineries in Texas. But there are some that don't. Yeah,
that is.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
True interesting because it is a tough climate and you know,
subject to a lot of swings. Let's talk about the
range of varieties and varietals you produced. When we attended
a wine tasting in New York several years ago hosted
(25:33):
by I guess the Texas Department of Agriculture or something
like that, that we were surprised at how many varietals
there were, and particularly a lot, you know, and some
really stood out, like the Rhone varrietals at Messina Hoff.
You also produce an impressive range of We talked about
the port but you've got the sparkling, the still whites,
(25:55):
and the reds, and we tasted several. Let's talk about
some of the standouts and why they work well in
the area where you're growing them.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
And the labels, well, they're online babies, so you know,
it's hard to pick one over the other. But the
you know, we work with thirty one varieties of grapes,
but there are over one hundred and twenty varieties planted
in Texas. I think a lot of that is because
that our environment and the size of our state. We're
(26:29):
bigger than France as a state, we're bigger than Germany
in terms of size, and so the diversity of Tehrawa
is extreme and kind of going back to the growing
region thing, what kind of to circle back on that
real quick. One thing that is, I would say a
(26:52):
little bit because of the fact that we are still
young industry. We only have eight avas of Texas compared
to whatever it's like one hundred and eighty in California
or whatever the number is, it's ridiculously high. That's not
because we don't have more growing regions that are great.
It's because we're still in the experimental process. So I
(27:12):
think a lot of the reasons why you see people
planting the wide diversity of different varieties and is because
we feel like we've had a lot of success, but
I think that there's still many more that can be
successful in Texas. One particular story that I think speaks
really well to that is our pioneering of Sagraentino in
(27:35):
the United States. It's a variety that is fairly fairly
unknown in general obviously, and your wine somier type community,
there's going to be more awareness than the general public.
But came from a small region in Umbria in northeast
of Rome, was almost not planted at all in the
(27:58):
US except for a few small vineyards. We brought it
here and planted, started producing and have found it to
be incredibly strong for growing in Texas and now we're
the largest producer of sagartina in the United States. That
all happened within a twelve year period. So there's been
(28:19):
a lot of stories like that. And I do think
that there is truth to the fact that Mediterranean varietals
in particular, whether that be Spain or southern France or Italy,
have shown to grow incredibly well. But there were not
just limited to that. I think that like Caeberne and Sauvignon,
for example, has been one of the most consistent in
(28:41):
the state in terms of year after year producing good
quality fruit. So I personally am and Karen we we do.
We do lean a little bit in terms of our
personal preference to Italian varieties. So you have seen over
the last eight years we've we have shifted quite a
bit to Italian focus. That's not just because we think
(29:03):
that they grow well, but it is it is a
little bit of a of a one maker preference and
a little bit of kind of speaking back to that
Italian heritage that we'd like to be able to do
experimentation with that, but I think we've only just begun
to see what Texas can grow and what varieties are
going to be successful here.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Well, I think you can't measure really in the first
couple of decades of the success of the state just
where you're going to be right. You have to you
have to learn by you have to learn as you
go along, and it takes time. One of the things
that I found really interesting was you also have a
couple of grapes that are considered cool climate, like reesling, Yeah,
(29:43):
grows really well in Texas as well. And you make
a wonderful example of that at Messinahoff.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Very good off dry Raisline. We're very impressed by it.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Thank you. Yeah, And I find that, you know, there's
some varieties that are cool climate grapes that that stress
under the heat, but there's others like recingly is a
great example of the fact that like the vine grows
well the fruit. It's always funny to have the conversation
(30:16):
because actually the first Texas wine to ever win a
ninety in the Wine Spectator was our Angel reestling, So
it's a late it was a late harvest reestling, and
that was back in nineteen ninety. It doesn't, you know,
whenever you have the general consumer. Obviously, Germany is incredibly
well known for reestling a very cool climate in the
(30:36):
in the in the regions it's grown, so the reason
tastes incredibly different. It's a very different profile than what
you would consider from your kind of old world reestling regions.
But it's really good. It's just it's just different. And
I think it took us a while to come to
to wrap our arms around owning the fact that, hey,
(30:58):
if it grows well and it tastes different, as you know,
as long as that style is in line with what
we're shooting for and the and the customer loves it,
then I think that's a major win. And we have
a special style of recent that we make so it works.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
You also make some beautiful sparkling wines which tend to
you know, do well with cool climate. We had the
sparkling Brute and you make We didn't try the sparkling
almond demisec, but it sounds really interesting. I was also
impressed Karen and Paul and David, like you make a
temporneo so you know, you represent all the countries, you know,
(31:34):
the great wine producers, kind of you've got Tempernello, you've
got a Premativa. Speaking of Italian, you mentioned the the
Cabernet franc Uh It's quite a range, and then I
mentioned the Rhan varietals. Quite a range. And what's interesting
is that you can get them all online. I want
to make sure we want to make sure we bring
(31:56):
Karen into the conversation and talk about the experience, because
a lot of you or selling and marketing is based
on your hospitality.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
But first, Karen, and it is a family affair.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
And it is a family affair. Karen. Yes, you've actually
come from a law background. You really were planting to
work in the law business and we're working in Washington.
When how did you meet Paul and how did this
all come about?
Speaker 5 (32:23):
Well, I always have to go back, and I always
have to admit early that I'm not technically a Textan
in my birth, but I am here, not leaving. But
I grew up outside of Philadelphia originally, and my mom's
side is all Italian. In fact, pat that side comes
from Sicily on the other side of the island. Actually,
So that concept of community and family and food and
(32:45):
wine was sort of there, but not in an academic,
not a professional standpoint, just as an appreciation ellowen. And
I always wanted to I always wanted to go to
school and be an attorney or maybe work for the government,
to do something in federal Uh. So I ended up
going to school in Washington, d C. At George Washington
(33:07):
University and studying political science and history and working in
law firms in high school and in college, and uh,
you know, the Lord has a funny way of lining
things up. But I ended up meeting Paul very kind
of randomly in in Washington, d C. Is like what
we like to say. And so he was at the
Naval Academy in Annapolis, and he was about to commission
(33:29):
in the Marine Corps. And uh and so I sped
up all my schooling pretty quickly to be able to
graduate earlier, knowing that the Marine Corps was going to
move us wherever they were going to move us, which
was fine.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
So we were in uh we were in Virginia for
a little bit and then North Carolina. Uh And while
we were North Carolina, while he was doing his active
duty deployments and things, I'd worked for an attorney down
there too, which was great, and they were like a
second family to me. So I like paperwork and like numbers,
I like keeping things organized. But I've always loved eating.
I've always loved wine. I've always loved the hospitality element.
(34:04):
I worked in a restaurant in high school, so I've
always appreciated that. And so meeting Paul and then eventually
finding out that his parents had a winery, which didn't
exactly sink in until I visited for the first time
and realized he was He wasn't kidding. This is like
a real This is a real winery. And I didn't
know anything about Texas wine at the time when we
(34:26):
first met, but I tried to learn as much as possible,
and we had the luxury of being able to work
with Paul's parents even when he was in the Marine Corps.
I got a chance to kind of listen to them
and learn from them. And then when we moved back
in twenty ten after he was finished in the military,
then we did everything together, and so I naturally fell
(34:49):
into all the paperwork with the winery. So my day job,
I liked to joke, is the chief administrative officer so
I'm over HR and accounting and marketing and e commerce
membership and things. But the fun stuff is being able
to connect to the education and do all the wine
pairing programs, goood wine pairing programs in a lot of
(35:10):
our culinary programs that we have here, which is the
fun part, albeit still very useful. So we have a
nice balance between the wine making side and then the
eating and exploring side. That's that's been quite fun to
be able to continue over the years.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well before we talk about that, Paul, thank you for
your service, because you did active duty wear.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
So I was stationed in North Carolina at Campbell journ
deployed to our ereck twice, in Nigeria once.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
So that's a And your father also was deployed and
was in the services as well.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Right, well, he never deployed, but he was in He
was stationed at Oakland Naval Hospital, so he actually was
there at the tail end of Vietnam and so he
actually wound up treating quite a few of the wounded
soldiers as they came back in the country.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
And so your parents decided to quote and I'm saying
this with quote, retire and then travel more. And they
handed the reins to the next generation, which is very
typical the wine family, and this is a family. We
had the honor of meeting your parents. They came and
visited with everybody at the port event. Karen, you talked
about how you divide duties, pull you oversee the operations
(36:30):
and the wine making. So it's a great team. There's
a lot to manage. You've got the Brian property. It's
not just a winery. There's a hotel, which we want
to talk about, a restaurant, a very active I think,
as you said seven how many people are in the
wine club seven thousand, absolutely, yeah, seven thousand members. In
(36:53):
fact that it's so successful that your father said he
was advising overseas other wine companies on how to have
wine clubs. It's as successful. But you also have tasting
rooms to facilities in grapevine and hill country country. Yeah,
So talk about the experience because the great thing is,
as we know, you can visit these properties, which is
(37:16):
the best way to experience Texas wine and hospitality. Talk
to us about it.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
Absolutely so. Texans are very hospitable people, which I think
is part of the reason why the industry has expanded
the way that it has and has had this kind
of exponential growth. Is we tend to be curious, and
driving three hours to anything is really not challenging here
in Texas, and so you're used to kind of driving
around and exploring and being connected to things that are
(37:43):
agriculture related. So the wineries in Texas have had a
great opportunity to be able to tell their story and
teach people a lot about what it is that's growing
different places and wine making styles that they have, and
kind of what their philosophy is. And Paul parents started
that very early on. They realized very quickly in the
(38:04):
early eighties that people were curious and wanted to find
out more information, and so the best way to be
able to turn them into wine lovers was to be
able to just sit down at a table and be
able to really just break things down in an easy
to digest fashion about what's happening with wine and what
was happening in the glass, and then if you can
(38:25):
connect that with food or other experiences, then it makes
it even even easier to understand, notwithstanding more memorable as well.
So for us here at the estate, we have a
lot of hospitality elements that are now going on at
any given time between the villa and bed and breakfast,
between the vin Chau's restaurant, between any of the tours
(38:46):
that we're doing. We have the production space here. We
do a lot of events, both private and then in house,
a lot of wine education, lots of big dinners and
things like that murder mystery dinners, all sorts of things
that are incorporating food together and really playing on that
food wine pairing concept. And then at the other locations,
(39:06):
we expanded very quickly after we came back across to
multiple other locations in the state to be able to
meet people closer to their front door essentially, So the
Fred Expert location opened up at twenty eleven with cottages
back there so people could stay. Plus the winery and
the vineyard may have an urban winery concept being grapevine
(39:29):
which allows us to be able to do a lot
of events and a lot of different things in the
Dallas Fort Worth market and that's been an awesome addition.
And then we opened up our most recent location outside
of Houston, actually in Richmond. It's called Messina Hoff Harvest
Green Winery and Kitchen, and it has a full restaurant
similar to what we have here at the estate where
(39:50):
they do what we call vineyard cuisine, so we cook
with wine and every dish that we make to be
able to again create these really easy to be easy
to understand and very approachable ways to be able to
explore wine on a kind of a different level. So
all four locations are constantly doing different activities and having
people come in, you know, kind of seven days a
(40:11):
week for the most part, which has been great, especially
as people are traveling in and out of Texas from
out of state or all over the world. It's been
it's been neat to be able to showcase what's happening
in the industry to captivated audience.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
That's a lot to it's a lot to manage it
and a lot a lot to handle, but you folks
do it very well and with a lot of grace
as well, and a lot of humor, which is which
is always nice for the people to come to see you. Yeah,
I want to give a shout out to the chef Ezekiel,
who's also who it works with you. He also comes
from a naval background if I remember correctly, and he's
(40:47):
from the Philippines. But he's a great guy and lived
in Hawaii, lived in Hawaii as well and worked for
some of the great chefs in Hawaii before he came
to the mainland and started working for you guys. Why
don't you tell us a little bit about him and
the food at the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Vintage Houn's Restaurant, which is a beautiful facility for meals
and also private events. And we did you know, we
tasted a beautiful tasted wines with the food exactly.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
So the Vintage House restaurant, originally opened in nineteen ninety five,
is kind of a teaching kitchen for like cooking parties
and things like that. But then we started doing alli
cart service the next year. So the concept has always
been based on vinyard cuisine, so cooking with wine and
every dish, every recipe, regardless of whether it's an appetizer, soup,
or salad, dressing or whatever that would be. And then again,
(41:31):
the goal is to create wine and food affinities and
be able to create combinations that make what I like
to say is a two plus two equals five moment
where you have something that really gets to be quite
spectacular when you combine them together. So Zeke has done
a great job. Here's our chef here, and in fact,
his wife is our general manager here. Didn't do that
(41:53):
on purpose necessarily, but they we know how that husband
and wife team thing goes, and those can actually be
the best. So they both have a hospitality background and
they love being able to explore all the things that
are associated with the different varieties and the different wine
styles and then how do we express that with foods
(42:13):
in ways that really honor both sides, both the culinary
ingredients and then also the wine itself. So his background
has allowed us to be able to showcase a lot
of different cuisine types. We feature them a lot in
our Cooking Party with the Chef, which is a monthly
program that we do here at the Vintage House where
they get the guests get a recipe book and we
(42:36):
cook right in front of them, teach them how to
actually make the things, and then of course it's a
three course lunch and there's wine parents and things like that,
so they get a chance to be able to hopefully
go back and try those those things as well. But
those are usually very theme towards different countries or different
cuisine style, different holiday periods or whatever it may be,
(42:58):
where you get a chance to be able to showky
all sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Well, what's interesting just to give our listeners an idea
when you say the dishes have wine incorporated, you know,
Mama Rosa meatballs named after Rose Bonerigo, Mama who has
a rose garden named after her. It's made with a
Merlow MARINERA. David had a steak salad with port mustard
(43:23):
glaze top sirloin and it was delicious. I particularly liked
the honey crusted baked ricotta with Gertz mnor herbed honey
and toasted chibata. And of course you recommend pairings with
these dishes. My salmon was black and with a Vina
cream sauce. So it's interesting to see how each dish
(43:48):
incorporates wine. And of course there is a pairing and
we had a great time tasting through many wines. I
think we did two sparkling, a few whites, and several reds,
and it was a great way to get the scope
of everything. And then separately you did this really great
port party where we had the ports and we also
(44:08):
had pork cocktails, which were delicious and really exciting. We
stayed on at Messina Hoff there is a lovely Ben
and Breakfast as well and what was needed, but we
stayed in the Romeo and Juliet room. So all the
rooms are named after like lovers or people. And the
(44:30):
detail is interesting because your parents love to go to
flea markets and the state sales and they tend to
buy stuff and bring it back and decorate the winery. Right.
Speaker 5 (44:39):
Yes, they've collected things over the years when they started
trying to showcase Texas wine across the state to restaurants
and do presentations with distributors and different things like that,
and you just you know, go to festivals where they
could present the wine. Their hobby along the way was
to kind of stop at antique shops and state sales
(45:00):
anything else while they were driving through, and so they
amassed quite a bit of things that they found. They
do seem to find them for really good deals in
really interesting places with really interesting background stories. So the
Villa Ben and Breakfast specifically is kind of covered in
all sorts of antiques that they've picked up along the way,
(45:21):
and that also there's quite a few family heirloom pieces
from both sides of the family that are that have
been incorporated in as well. So it makes for very eclectic,
you know, kind of look and feel traditional, but also
a little unexpected to be able to honor that history
wherever it may be, wherever it came from.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Well, I think one of the unexpected things for me
was when I asked your mom where the front doors
to the villa came from, and she said, oh, they
were Louis.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Pasteurs, you know, and and there was some interesting Venetian
fabrics tapestry. I mean, it really is a colectic and
we're talking about not just going to like a Texas
estate hill, going around the world. It was a lot
of fun and there was a lot of picture taking
(46:10):
to be had, and we really loved it. The grape
stomp was really fun. It was you know, just to
take our listeners through it. First of all, kudos to you, Paul,
and to your team and the port presentation for really
educating in a way that didn't talk down or get
too geeky to the audience. I thought that was like,
really really good protecting In the port one, I was like,
(46:31):
you know, port can be complicated to explain to people,
and he did it in a great way that resonated.
But you know, everybody gathered we did a presentation we
signed all our documents and then we did a tour,
walked through the vineyards and for me it was my
first time actually clipping grapes off of vine I know,
you've just an old soul led it, David.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Not something I've ever really liked to do.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
But he's done it. You know, for anyone that thinks
it's romantic and wants to go work a harvest, it
can be very backing. It was fun for like the
thirty minutes we did it, but I said, I cannot
imagine in that incredible prairie Texas heat in Texas doing it,
you know, for long days when you are in harvest,
do you bring in trust some may a lot of
(47:15):
people get in and their their staff expands. Where do
you get your harvesting people from other than the people
who sign up to go to the harvest festival?
Speaker 4 (47:24):
Well, you know we do so the estate harvest of
the of the twenty acres. Normally the public participates in
picking about I would say three or four acres of
that sok. But it definitely is is meant to be
that kind of short taste of the tradition of hand
(47:46):
picking grapes, and so it's fun educational experience and kind
of getting behind the scenes. But in terms of my team,
so we do try to because of the because of
the operation that we run, you know, we don't really
do very much see all employment. We will get you know,
interns from A and M and from other colleges that
(48:06):
want to learn about whether it be a bit of
culture analogy that will come for the for the duration
of their internship, so that that there's some seasonality to that.
You know, Unfortunately their school starts or their internships end
normally like right in the middle of our harvest. But
but you know that so that from that side, it's
(48:26):
very cool to be able to connect with people and
teach them, especially people that are considering getting into the
wine industry. And that would actually apply to our overall staff,
our hospitality staff. The vast majority of them are are
are our students, and so you know, they may only
be with us for a few years as they're doing
their education and then they move on, but we we
(48:49):
see it as a long term connection opportunity to you know,
many of them wear their first wine experience. Uh, they
learn about wine with us, they gain an appreciation for it,
not just as a beverage, but as a cultural piece,
how it integrates with food and all the different elements
of life. And so then when they leave here, they
(49:10):
go off and many times you know, whether their career
is hospitality related or not, there's a piece of wine
that follows them always, which is I think is very cool.
Plus we do have people who are going to be
some lie's and so forth that it's also kind of
a cool thing.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Well, you really have an extended family and it's wonderful
that you reach into the community and have done so
much for Texas. Again, we've been talking with one of
the first families of Texas wine, the bonto Rigo family
is of Messina Hoff. Paul and Karen, thank you for
joining us on the Connected Table, and thank you again
for your warm Texas hospitality.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
Thank you, yes, thank you. Love to having y'all.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Well for anyone listening, we hope you take a chance
and go visit the great state of Texas. I know
we'll be back to explore more and learn more about
Texas wines. And you can learn more about Messina Hooff
at Messinahoff dot com. And of course you know, for us,
it was just underscored our theme of this show when
we went to Texas, Brian, Texas never been really great
(50:13):
home of the Aggie's, got to put that in. It
is a terrific place, and so we remind you when
you travel, stay insatiably curious. Thank you,
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