Jack's Journal: Texas Wine Harvest

CBS News producer and Winnebago driver Jack Halsbond shares his adventures as he travels the country as part of The Early Show's "Great American Vacation" giveaway.

OK, conjure up your visions of the state of Texas. There's cowboys on horses; Stetson hats; six shooters; rodeos; longhorn cattle, sage brush, and of course, world-class wine.

World-class wine?

Are you kidding me? Actually, I'm not. From Waco, Texas, the home of the Texas Rangers museum, Dr. Pepper, and the site of The Early Show's Friday, July 21, "Great American Vacation" giveaway, we traveled south for 90 miles on Route 6 to Bryan, Texas, for the harvest weekend held at the family-owned Messina Hof Winery and Resort.

View my photos!

Paul's family is from Messina, Sicily, and his family has been making wine in there since 1800. Today, more than 200 years later, the Bonarrigos of Sicily continue to produce wine to the same exacting standards that have become family tradition. Born and raised in Bryan, Texas, Merrill Bonarrigo can trace her family roots back to Hof, Germany. Hence, as they merged their lives together in matrimony, they also merged the names Messina and Hof to create Messina Hof.

A sixth-generation winemaker, Paul Bonarrigo's passion for wine stems from his family's rich winemaking tradition. According to that tradition, the first-born son of each Bonarrigo generation is named Paul and he is designated as the winemaker for that generation.

Since Messina Hof's formation, the winery has received numerous awards for excellence in regional, national and international competitions, making it the most-honored winery in Texas.

So just what is a harvest weekend? Well, it's an opportunity to take part in harvesting the Lenoir grapes that are grown on this site's 40 acres. We arrived at 8 a.m. and sat through an enjoyable and entertaining orientation. Afterwards, we headed out to the vineyards and under the direction of staff members and in teams, we picked the grapes from the vines to the accompaniment of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin playing from a portable CD player atop a flatbed truck. It was an experience I will remember for a very long time. It was a microcosm of my last two months on the road. As diverse yet surprisingly the same as this great land of ours is, so too where the wonderful folks that all took part in the first weekend of the harvest.
There were the fabulous Bunko bunch, nine wonderfully funny and raucous ladies who came to Bryan for a kind of girls' weekend out, (and to find Captain Jack Sparrow, the huge Johnny Depp fans that they are), pick grapes, drink wine and have fun. Sorry there was no rum to hide.

Also on hand were Randy and Ellen Buntyn, (rhymes with Huntin), from Baton Rouge, La., the location of our next vacation giveaway. Randy won out in a closely contested contest to be named the Big Kahuna. (You see, while you're picking the grapes, and before the stomping starts; did I mention that you also get to experience the age-old practice of stomping on the grapes? Well, just close your eyes and think "I Love Lucy"; you'll quickly get the picture.) The Big Kahuna award goes to the person who picks the oddest looking cluster of grapes and gives it a descriptive name somewhat reminiscent of its shape and then performs a little ditty in front of the assembled crowd to show his or her own talent. The judging is done by Merrill and is all in handled in great fun.

Randy won out over Trenton King of Spring, Texas, and Lucas Koehler of New Baton who was visiting with his family — brothers Reece and Elliot, mom and dad, Lori and Doug, sister-in-law Lisa Huey and niece Lauren Vaile.

Then the stomping begins. Feet are rinsed off as you step into a tub of water. Then, you are helped into the stomping bins and the real fun begins. You take part in the centuries-old traditional way that wine grapes were once crushed. It's a real hoot!

Of course crushing by stomping is a reenactment of the ancient way in which wine grapes were once crushed. For the past 300 years, there have been mechanical mechanisms that have replaced those ancient ways. Wine has been around for a very long time, being part of sacrament and ritual in many of the world's religions. Today, it is recommended, in moderation, as healthful by the American Heart Association.

Your grape juice-infused footprints are then preserved on the back of the Messina Hof T-shirt that is part of the Harvest Weekend package. It's yours to keep as a very unique memento of your own hands-on experience in the process of the picking and crushing and fermenting of the grapes that will become the wine you may find on your dinner table. After a rinse off of your feet (yes, the grape stain rinses right off with water) and a tour of the fermentation room and the aging and bottling areas, a marvelous buffet luncheon awaits you.

Then it's on to an informative sampling demonstration, hosted by Merrill Bonarrigo, on the pairing of food with the right wine to maximize the sensation of taste and to further enhance the palate. The afternoon also includes a sampling of some of the wines that are available at Messina Hof.

Messina Hof has more than 600 acres of vineyards in Texas. Grapes are grown in eight different regions of a state that has all the climatic environments to be found on this planet. The state of Texas itself is the fifth-largest wine producing state in the United States, and Messina Hof itself controls 25 percent of all grapevines planted in Texas, making it the largest grower in the High Plains region where the company har