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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 19, 1985)
SO T3 c ■ . -S J Q _o 5 o ~ t: _ . X - C .S 5 ^ ^ 5.^.5- <u t: -■^ Tj -c ‘n ^ w t: ;a C— 3_/ CS 5 ^ vO.-g _ i~ H) ^ ~1 s <v ^ V " CO J '-u^ 1 < -O ' ■ iri|i|is:i v '£ c ^ O.J3 v: ^ ^ SQ cfl "D ^ C - -i' X • . <o -J: ^ s ■ - i- v ic O :•=? r 'N -T< £ . 'Vb i. G G- 0~ . % 5--T3W- _ 3 SZ-^-H '%■■*'* ° MJS * S&& -z-s.Zo- m Texas wines improving every year By CATHY RIELY Staff Writer Texas wines. The words evoke various images: underage high-school students getting drunk on jugs of cheap wine bought at local convenience stores; a few small-time vineyards selling and producing an insignificant amount of wine a year; a joke — in Texas and elsewhere. None of these specu lations are complimentary, or as it turns out. accurate. In actuality, 14 wineries are spread across Texas, from Lub bock to Del Rio. State wine pro duction ranks 14th in the Un ited States and is rising rapidly even' year. And Texas wines have won awards in both na tional and international con tests. Locallv, Messina Hof Winery is representative of the up-and- coming wine industry in Texas. Paul and Merrill Bonarrigo planted every vine of the origin al one-fourth acre test plot in 1977. Bonded in 1983, the win- en' has increased its production from 6000 to 16,000 gallons per vear, and has plans to ki be in the 60,000-gallon range, probably within three years.” Though the winery' is new, the Bonarrigos already have made a name for themselves. Since September of 1984, Messi na Hof has won 11 awards, seven in the state and four from national and international wine contests in Dallas and New York. Messina Hof is one of Texas' youngest wineries. The oldest winery' still producing dates back over 100 vears. Val Verde Winerv in Del Rio celebrated its centennial anniversary' in the tall of 1983. The winery' has re mained in the Qualia family throughout the years. Texas probably had 45 wineries before Prohibition, Bonarrigo says. Most of the wineries folded because of Pro hibition. “They (the Qualias) sumved Prohibition by selling wines to churches,” Mrs. Bonarrigo says. But winemaking in Texas dates back further than the Val Verde Winery'; the roots go back well over two centuries. When Texas was still a part of Mexico, vineyards were established and wine was produced in Paras, Coahuila (1593), and Delicia, Coahuila (1606). In 1662, Fran ciscan priests from Mexico car ried vines into the El Paso Valley and established the Ysleta Mis sion. So Texas had wine a full century' before another Francis can priest planted the first vines in San Drego, in what has be come the California wine in dustry'. Texas’ contribution to the wane industry' is even more sig nificant, thanks to legendary' botanist and viticulturist Tho mas Volney Munson. In the mid 1840’s, a fungus parasrte infected vineyards in England, France, Italy, and throughout Europe. Europeans imported American rootstocks resistant to the fungus, but the vines shipped carried the root louse phylloxera. (The louse destroys the root system ofvines and causes them to die). The phylloxera spread throughout Europe, destroving more than six mrllion acres in grapevines. This is when Munson, and Texas, came to the rescue. Mun son sent new rootstock to Europe where famous grape varieties were grafted onto the Texas roots. Munson and his colleague, Hermann Jaeger, were awarded the French Le gion of Honor Cross of Merite Agricole in 1888. The only two Americans so honored, Munson and Jaeger are still considered saviors of France’s wine in dustry. So to this day, vines in Bor- deatLX and Burgundy are of the same lineal rootstock as those throughout Texas. Though the wine industry' in Texas goes back a long way, it wasn’t until 1976 that “the new era in Texas wine began.” Bonarrigo says that this is be cause Texas is a fairly young wine-drinking state. “One of the big reasons for this, is that until 1971 liquor- by-the-drink w'as not legalized in the state of Texas,” Bonarrigo says. “That slowed the process see page 12