The Messina Hof Winery property feels like it’s straight off a Renaissance movie set. Its red-brick buildings hover in a circle and sit peacefully in front of the vineyard, where green leafy vines that look like small trees stand in rows as far as the eye can see. Each vine is teeming with green, soon to be purple, grapes just waiting to be picked at Messina Hof’s Harvest Festival.
Messina Hof was founded by Paul and Merrill Bonarrigo in 1977 in Bryan and just celebrated their 40th year in business, says Savannah Gaines, communications manager. However, the Bonarrigo family have been making wine since the 1800s, beginning in Sicily, Italy. Messina Hof began as an experimental vineyard with the Bonarrigo family having no idea how the project would turn out. They were among the few Texas wineries of their kind at the time, Gaines says.
Every year, the Bonarrigo family would harvest the grapes together. In 1977, the first Harvest Festival was held when international students — who helped pick grapes back home — wanted to participate while they were here, and the Bonarrigo’s welcomed them in, Gaines says.
“It used to just be the Bonarrigo family would all come together just like in Sicily and that was the community,” Gaines says. “Then it became the foreign exchange students, then it became a whole, big, state-wide thing to come and pick and stomp the grapes.”
Today, the Bonarrigo family still participates in the Harvest Festival with the community. Open to the public, guests can pick, stomp, and participate in many events. The family friendly event displays Messina Hof’s values of family, romance, tradition, and hospitality. Children can play and get their energy out while their parents relax and enjoy the activities.
One event is the Big Kahuna contest. While picking grapes, participants look for any odd or funny shaped grape clusters to enter in the contest, which rewards the funniest clump found. Gaines compares the Big Kahuna event to spotting funny shapes in the clouds. Each guest has a chance to present their grape cluster to the audience for voting.
Participants can also stomp the grapes and leave a grape-colored footprint on a t-shirt in memory of their experience. Gaines says the grapes picked at the Harvest Festival — a Lenoir grape — are unique to other wine grapes because they actually bleed purple when stomped.
“The thing that’s cool about Harvest is you’re being a part of making our wine,” Gaines says. “You picked the grapes then a few years from now, that bottle of Port that you’re drinking — because that’s what the Lenoir grapes go into, our Port — you helped. It’s something that is with you for a long time because the wine has to age. So, it’s really like a lasting thing. You were a part of that vintage.”
Tickets for Harvest Festival start at $35. A Harvest Pass is good for general admission and includes grape picking and stomping, a Harvest t-shirt, winery tour, and wine tasting. Additional packages can be purchased to experience lunch, wine and food pairing, night harvest, or the famous murder mystery dinner. The Harvest Festival begins July 27 and is every Friday and Saturday through Aug. 18. For more information, visit www.messinahof.com/harvest/calendar.
