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With the cost of fuel soaring, it’s a great time to focus on the many special places to visit right here in our own back yard, that special place we call the Brazos Valley! We live in a very unique area. The Brazos Valley has so many “hidden treasures.”
In the Spring of 2007, I visited with Paul Bonarrigo at Messina Hof Winery in Bryan, Texas. I wanted to talk with Paul about the subject of this special series of articles, “What Makes the Brazos Valley Special.” As someone who has been in business in the Brazos Valley for more than 30 years, and in such a unique business, Paul has a broad perspective of the Brazos Valley and the people who come here from all over the world. His view of the hospitality we serve up here in the Brazos Valley and his role in that along with his wife and co-owner Merrill, provide him with a unique insight to what makes the Brazos Valley such a special area in which to live or visit.
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Paul Bonarrigo, Owner and Winemaker, Messina Hof
Winery, Bryan, Texas. |
Appropriately, we have included our interview with Paul as the first in our special series about the Brazos Valley.
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As I joined Paul in his second floor office with expansive views out over the lake and vineyards, I’m truly impressed by what a special place Messina Hof is and why it’s an integral part of this special place called the Brazos Valley.
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BVR – Paul, what we want to talk about is “What Makes the Brazos Valley Special.” And, I think you’re part of what makes it special. We also want to talk about you, your family, and the winery, and kind of a brief history of the winery. I’d like to hear from you a firsthand perspective of what brought you to the Brazos Valley, what attracted you here, what’s kept you here all these years, and what do you think brings people here. And let’s talk about the winery too.
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I came to Bryan in 1971. I was recruited by St. Joseph Hospital to start the Physical Therapy Rehab Program. So, I came in December of 1971 after spending 3 years as a Naval Officer with the United States Navy as a Physical Therapist. I grew up in New York, went to high school in New Jersey, went to Columbia University and received my physical therapy background. When I came to Texas, I thought it was ironic because I went to Bryan Elementary School in New Jersey, and so coming to Bryan and seeing the fantastic university that we have, Texas A & M, was a real plus for me because I really enjoy athletics. I love the proximity of Bryan / College Station to Austin, to Houston, to Dallas. It really is the heart of the state. We’re so close to everything.
BVR – What’s your main sport?
The main sports that I enjoyed, I played semi-professional baseball and I also went to college on a soccer scholarship. So, I came here, seeing all the sports, and my area of interest in physical therapy is sports medicine. I was actively engaged in taking care of the Bryan High School football team and also worked with some of the athletes at Texas A & M. Then in 1973, I started my own private practice, called The Sports and Back Clinic. I did that in conjunction with being the Director at St. Joseph Hospital. I stayed at St. Jo’s from 1971 till 1992. Then I retired from St. Jo’s and continued to operate my private practice. In 1977 while I was rehabilitating, one of my patients, Ron Perry, had a sprained ankle and his PHD dissertation was on the feasibility of grape growing in Texas. While I was rehabbing him, Ron knew of my family background. My family has been in the wine business in Sicily since the 1800’s. In my family, the first born son of each generation is named Paul, and at 16 we go through the hatting ceremony where we’re given the honor of becoming the winemaker for the next generation. That was my kind of family background, and so when Ron heard of that, he said well Texas A & M was looking for 13 vineyards in the state of Texas to plant 50 different varieties of grapes. In his study, he was trying to determine where the optimal location would be to grow these 50 different grapes. So, that was the start of our vineyard operation in 1977, and we continued to expand that vineyard from ’77 until ’83. At that point, we had enough experience with the vineyard and enough volume of grapes to start producing and selling wine to the public. 1983 was the first release of our wine. So, Messina Hof is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
BVR – That’s a long time!
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When we started, there were three Texas Wineries. We now have 133. We’ve gone from last in the country in wine production to 5th in the country. We’re now the fastest growing wine producing state in the United States. It’s been an amazing growth! And one of the benefits in being in Bryan / College Station again goes back to our close proximity of all those major towns. So, last year, Messina Hof had 260,000 visitors, more than the Bush Presidential Library and more than Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley, California. Having close proximity to major towns I think is one of the great things about making Bryan / College Station so attractive.
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Because we are blessed with a high quality of life and people from other cities see that, they want to share that, and they come here to enjoy it. The community has so much to offer as well. Again, back to all the wonderful things that Texas A & M brings to the table. And, I think the other thing that is unusual about Bryan / College Station, it’s probably one of the friendliest places I’ve ever been. Hospitality is contagious in town. I think people who work in the stores and work in the restaurants have great hospitality skills. I think we’re very kind and courteous people. So, as a result, I think we’ve been very successful as a community in attracting others. And then having alumni from A & M wanting to come back to the community to retire has really been a blessing because now we have people who have international experiences coming back to Bryan / College Station and it has really enhanced our wine business because they are used to drinking good wine, great wine, and also they’re used to eating well. And so, as a result, our restaurant has been very successful.
BVR - How long has your restaurant been in operation?
The restaurant is 11 years old. The Bed and Breakfast was built and started in 1999. So, it’s going on 8 years.
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During the 30 years, we’ve had about 8 expansions of our facility and now we’re producing about 100,000 cases, which is 250,000 gallons of wine. So, it makes us the third largest winery in the state as well.
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Bryan / College Station has great weather. We get enough heat in the summer to ripen the fruit. It’s mild enough in the winter that we don’t get problems with winter kill. And the grape that we grow here is called Lenoir, otherwise known as Black Spanish, and it makes the most incredible port probably in the world. So, that’s what we primarily grow here. And then Messina Hof has 600 acres all around the state where we grow other varieties of grapes as well.
BVR – You mentioned Fredericksburg as one of them.
Yes, and then we also have vineyards up on the Texas / Oklahoma border. And we have a great many acres in the Lubbock area.
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BVR- How do you anticipate the droughts that we keep seeing? Does that have an impact?
Most of the time, we get rain every two to three weeks. If we don’t, we have a drip irrigation system and we’re able to irrigate. But, almost always, we do not have to irrigate until the month of June, and it’s usually the latter part of June, because we normally get rainfall. Like this year, 2007, we’re running about three and a half to four inches above normal rainfall thus far. So, we haven’t had to irrigate at all so far this year in 2007 and the way we look, it looks like we’re going to be fine at least until June.
BVR – Are the grapes happy with this drip irrigation?
Yes. The well that we use is a deep water well and it produces high quality water. Nothing is as good as rainfall, but the irrigation water is good and it’s plentiful. That ‘s the other big benefit of agriculture in the Brazos Valley is that unlike many parts of the state where the quality of water is poor, plus the volume of water is poor, we have an abundance of irrigated water and also the quality of the water is good. And the Brazos Valley is known for its agriculture. A tremendous number of acres for beef cattle and also it’s the home of some of the best cotton produced in the state. It’s a great place to grow things. Good soil, good weather, good water.
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BVR – You know to me, one of the things I’ve discovered is you have to get off the freeway…and you have to get out of the car as well, and you’ll experience things that you wouldn’t believe.
There’s just so much beauty! Our wild flowers are beautiful. And our winter weather……I love when people come to see us in the December, January, February months because I would say half of those days we have plenty of sunlight, it’s very mild, and you know a wonderful place to visit.
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BVR – So, you’re still popular even in the winter here.
Yes. Especially with our “wintering Texans” here who are coming from the north, they’ve passed through Bryan / College Station on the way to the valley and many of them have made Messina Hof a regular stop and they’ll spend the night or spend the day and stock up on wine and go down to the valley when they’re coming back up north to go home for the summer, they normally stop in again. And the word keeps spreading.
BVR – Well good word, good food, and good wine…it can all spread pretty fast.
It really does. The experience of coming to a winery and being treated properly and tasting good products, you know it helps to sell itself.
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BVR – It certainly seems to me that you’re well experienced at hospitality and how to treat people here. I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen so far.
I appreciate that and we really work at it. We feel as though wine is potentially an intimidating product. And it’s important that the people who come feel comfortable with it. It’s a place where we try to expose them to wine. I would say that for a lot of Texans we are the first winery they’ve ever been to. And so that first experience is very important.
BVR – What would you say to someone like me who comes here and they honestly don’t even know what kind of wine to ask for with their meal?
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Well, the beauty of coming to a winery is what you do is sample wine. And so, as a result of that sampling, we taste the dry white, sweet white, a dry red, sweet red, and by doing so, you get to understand what your taste buds like. And that’s why we try to vary the flavor profiles of what we show people. By the end of the tasting you have found the wine that you like. And that’s our goal, to be able to break through to that point where you find a wine that’s one of your favorites.
BVR – I don’t remember its name, but at the Chamber of Commerce event here I had an excellent wine….it was a sweeter type of wine, which unfortunately my taste is toward sweet.
It’s probably Angel. It’s a late harvest Riesling and it’s a wine that won Best of Texas this year at the Houston Livestock show. Great wine. Nice and sweet and you know the average American has grown up on soda. Almost all wine drinkers start with sweet wines and they gradually migrate towards dryer wines. It’s a normal migration. We do a lot of educational programs for graduate students at A & M and graduating seniors at A & M, trying to expose them to wine culture so that when they get out into the business world they don’t feel intimidated by ordering wine when they go out to dinner. And invariably, they start with something sweet and gradually, over a period of months and years, they get something dry and then they start diversifying and they feel comfortable. They’re no longer intimidated.
BVR – I think that’s important. A lot of people….and I’m one of them….I just don’t know that much about it. I love to be at wineries, but I’m no expert.
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A special thanks to Paul and Merrill Bonarrigo from the Brazos Valley Reporter and LifeintheBrazos.com LLC for their gracious hospitality during my visits to Messina Hof. I went on to learn much more about wines and about the experience at Messina Hof Winery and Resort as 2007 progressed. As a sponsor of the 2007 Harvest festival and in covering the story of the festival, I was able to experience firsthand the wine, food, hospitality, the knowledge, and unforgettable experiences with the terrific staff at Messina Hof and the attendees of the festival. See our coverage and virtual tours of the 2007 Messina Hof Harvest Festival>
The Messina Hof experience is truly one that if you have not yet experienced, you owe it to yourself. Traveling up Highway 6, one would never realize the experience that awaits them just a few miles away down Old Reliance Road. So, jump off the freeway and experience this for yourself right here in Bryan, Texas!
- Brazos Valley Reporter -
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