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Growing Grapes in Texas
From the Commercial Vineyard to the Backyard Vine
By Jim Kamas Texas A&M University Press
Copyright © 2014 Jim Kamas
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62349-223-6
CHAPTER 1
Why Do You Want to Plant a Vineyard?
ALTHOUGH IT MAY SEEM somewhat rudimentary, it is extremely important for persons or families who want to get into the vineyard business to ask themselves what is behind their desire. Is it because of the pleasure in drinking wine? Is it the social aspects of winery events? Is it the pleasure of working outside and growing things? Grape growing is a venture that requires constant infusions of time, energy, and resources, and, like dancing, timing is everything. A fungicide is the same price if purchased and applied before or after an infection period, but the outcomes will be entirely different.
The most common mistake new and prospective growers make is to underestimate how much time it takes to successfully establish and manage a vineyard of any appreciable size. So, in the beginning, ask yourselves these questions: Are we ready to devote every weekend to this venture? Are we willing to spend all of our vacation time pruning, harvesting, and managing a vineyard? Many couples entering the business find that, having purchased a vineyard, their "together" time is spent solely erecting trellis, tying up young vines, and spraying weeds. This scenario may sound like an exaggeration intended to discourage everyone from even considering establishing a vineyard. That is not the case, but it is a call to carefully examine all aspects of the enterprise before you get involved in it. The impact on lives and relationships is real. Owning a vineyard can be a uniquely gratifying experience that is professionally and emotionally rewarding, or it can end in heartbreak and economic perdition. It's a sad commentary, but I have a computer file of photographs of abandoned vineyards. The file name is "Broken Dreams." While the narratives of how these vineyards ultimately failed are tragic, far worse is the tale of how their demise affected many of those families. While successful grape growing is founded on scientific principles, there is still a strong element of risk. As with any temptation of fortune, people should never gamble any more than they can afford to lose, financially or emotionally.
The second greatest misconception among prospective growers is the notion that a vineyard is a simple thing to manage. Fully understanding grapevine physiology, light interception, response to soils and climatic variation, and fruit maturation, as well as the abundance of diseases and insect pests, fungicide modes of action, and herbicide chemistry, to name a few important concepts, are all critical to making sound management decisions vital to the health and productivity of a vineyard. Most prospective growers tend to come from the ranks of the successful. However, being a skilled neurosurgeon or attorney does not automatically make someone a qualified vineyard manager. If owning a vineyard is one's dream, even the supremely intelligent and hardworking professional must prepare for an entirely new course of study. A successful grape grower must know not just the "hows" but the "whys" of making management decisions. Most economically successful grape growers were successful first in some other commercial agricultural enterprise, such as cotton, peanuts, or vegetable crops. Find such persons and seek their advice; they have survived for a reason.
The biggest mistake commonly made by new growers is to plant a vineyard on a parcel of land because they already own it. They have looked over a field and remarked how beautiful that land would be with a vineyard on it. If you want to plant a small vineyard for noncommercial grape production, simply to supply your friends and family with a source of grapes for home wine production, then establishing a vineyard because you already own the land makes sense. However, if the goal is to create an economically viable commercial grape vineyard, using land simply because you own it may be a mistake. Site selection is the single most economically critical decision a prospective grower can make. Choose the land for your venture only after careful consideration, and with abundant caution. Grape growers have an adage that speaks to this principle: "Live where you farm, don't farm where you live." While it's important to live in proximity to your vineyard, it's wiser to move your house close to your vineyard than to choose a vineyard site simply because it is near your current homestead.
Challenges to Economic Gain
With prices for some grapes exceeding two thousand dollars a ton in 2013, a vineyard might appear to offer its owner the potential to make vast sums of money. This view is generally deceptive because of the high financial inputs required to ripen a crop of high-quality fruit. Grape growers and wineries alike share the old adage that to make a small fortune in the business, one must first start with a large one.
While many factors need to be considered to make a vineyard a viticultural success, one element is common to all enterprises that are an economic success: a realistic business plan. One of the biggest challenges facing a new grower is that of economic scale. In other words, it takes the same tractor, the same airblast sprayer, the same mower, and so forth, to care for a two-acre vineyard as a twenty-acre vineyard. These fixed economic costs present a greater economic challenge to a small operation that will have lower returns than a larger one. Likewise, new growers cannot expect to command premium prices for their fruit until they have proven to a winery that they can consistently predict crop size and deliver superior quality fruit. Successful growers maintain long-term contracts with one or more wineries and develop a working relationship that features a win/win attitude. Not all wineries have this attitude, and not all growers can manage their vineyards to give sustainable yields of superior quality fruit. It is true that, in 2013, Texas wineries are in great need of additional fruit. This does not mean that anything you grow will be purchased, however. One can make bad wine out of good grapes, but one cannot make good wine out of bad grapes. The current market is very open and competitive, and, over time, wineries that make bad wine will not survive.
Labor Issues
Those who have a desire to run a vineyard because they like to do hands-on work outdoors and to grow things should recognize the reality of that dream: killing weeds in August when the mercury climbs to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, pruning vines when it's freezing cold because you absolutely have to start when it's still winter to finish the job by spring, and dodging black widow spiders while you harvest. These are the realities of grape growing. While you and your family may be able to endure these extremes, the reality is that, to be economically viable, a vineyard operation needs to be large enough that your family can't do everything themselves. Finding additional workers who will endure these harsh conditions is one of the most daunting challenges of owning a vineyard. Although the United States entered a prolonged period of high unemployment some years ago, most advertisements for seasonal farm labor go unanswered or applicants quickly leave after the realities of the situation reveal themselves. Any discussions of farm labor involve the contentious politics of immigration reform, but most who are actively involved in commercial agriculture will agree that some form of a legal, simplified guest worker program is sorely needed. The current farm guest worker program, known as the H-2A program, is a bureaucratic nightmare. While some fruit and vegetable growers still use workers with these H-2A-type visas, the problem with the program is that many federal lawmakers do not believe that American agriculture actually needs additional workers. Herein lies the dilemma. To be efficient and economically viable, growers need to have an operation that is too large for a family to handle themselves, so they must either hire workers (which is extremely difficult) or work toward mechanization of vineyard tasks, which requires expensive specialized equipment. Once again, the economies of scale become a critical aspect of the enterprise.
Accepting Risk
No matter how carefully a site is chosen or varieties and rootstocks selected, grape growers are constantly challenged by different elements that throw risk into the equation. Weather across Texas, and indeed most of the southern United States, is quite variable, and extremes in weather conditions constantly affect viticultural management decisions. Ed Auler, longtime winery owner of Fall Creek Winery in Tow, Texas, describes viticulture in Texas as "growing grapes under periods of extended drought only to be interrupted by an occasional flood." His observations are indeed indicative that weather averages are made up of extremes. There are few "normal" years, so having a site whose features can help moderate these dramatic shifts in conditions is necessary for long-term profitability. Not only rainfall but temperature extremes complicate consistent grape production. Freeze injury caused by winter low temperatures can cause bud, cordon, and trunk injury or death. Spring frost can destroy a crop in a few hours, as can hail, and heavy rainfall near harvest can lead to rotten fruit. There are a few cultural practices growers can employ to lessen the effects of weather extremes, but site selection remains the single most critical factor affecting outcomes.
So, for those still interested in reading further and jumping into this venture, here are a few adages to bear in mind:
PLANTING A VINEYARD IS FAR MORE WORK THAN YOU EVER DREAMED.
• There is much more to learn about growing grapes than you can imagine.
• Establishing a vineyard will cost you more than you planned on spending.
• Remember Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."
• And don't forget O'Leary's Corollary: "Murphy was an optimist."
CHAPTER 2
History of Grape Growing in Texas
THE HISTORY of grape growing in Texas predates that of California by nearly a century. In the 1660s, Franciscan monks brought grape cuttings from Mexico and established vineyards for sacramental wine production at the mission at Ysleta on the Rio Grande, near present-day El Paso. The success of these vineyards was probably due to the disease tolerance and easy adaptation to local conditions of the Mexican nursery stock, and those vineyards remained economically viable until the early twentieth century. Historical accounts indicate that the wave of European settlers from wine-producing countries in the mid- to late nineteenth century brought Vitis vinifera grape cuttings from the Old World, and there are records of attempts to establish vineyards near Bellville, New Braunfels, and Fredericksburg. There are no reports of notable production from these vineyards, and by all accounts, they soon failed. These settlers soon learned that by adding sugar to the juice of several wild, native Texas grape species, stable wine could be produced.
Gilbert Onderdonk (1829–1920) began working with horticultural crops at an early age, and, by the time he was eleven, he had developed several new varieties of Irish potato. Onderdonk moved from his native New York to Texas in 1851 for health reasons, and he eventually bought 360 acres of land in Victoria County, Texas, where he taught school, raised horses, and, about 1858, started a fruit nursery. Gilbert Onderdonk volunteered and served in the Eighth Texas Infantry, and he participated in battles at Corpus Christi and Fort Esperanza during the Civil War. In subsequent years, he was regarded as one of the leading horticulturists of his time, and at his Mission Valley Nursery he experimented with, propagated, and sold grapevines from the Rio Grande to New Orleans, all of them well adapted to local conditions.
Fellow horticultural pioneer Thomas Volney Munson considered him an inspirational contemporary, and Onderdonk in turn recognized the importance of Munson's work. Onderdonk undoubtedly encountered the grapevine malady known as Pierce's disease (PD) and was among the first to recognize the "blight" we now know as cotton root rot. In his writings he noted, "We had temporary success with labrusca and some vinifera varieties. But, from different causes, we found them unreliable and short lived with us." He further stated that "in most occupied portions of Texas, there are spots of ground upon which cotton and some other plants die out ... all of the grasses seem unaffected by it. This blight is quite sure to kill every apple and pear tree and every grape vine which it attacks and sometimes destroys peach trees and rose bushes. I have seen a whole orchard—one by one, in regular succession—yield to its withering power."
Munson (1843–1913) was born in Illinois, graduated from Kentucky State Agricultural College, and moved to Denison, Texas, in 1876. Munson apparently developed his love of breeding grapevines from visits to his chemistry professor's vineyard in Kentucky during the fall of 1873. Although he, like his brothers, was involved in real estate businesses in Denison, Munson quickly found himself captivated by the tremendous biodiversity he found in Texas. From 1880 to 1910, he collected, catalogued, and bred grapes from native southern species and developed more than three hundred new grape cultivars adapted to various areas of Texas and the southeastern United States. In addition to being cold hardy and resistant to fungal pathogens, many of Munson's varieties were tolerant to Pierce's disease. In 1909, Munson published Foundations of American Grape Culture, which became the standard text on grapevine genetics and culture in its day. Munson's greatest fame, however, came from his recognition that grape phylloxera, an insect that was decimating vineyards across Europe and indeed most of the world, could be overcome by grafting susceptible vines onto native Texas grapevines, which were resistant to the pest. For his efforts, the French government sent a delegation to Denison to bestow the French Legion of Honor, Chevalier du Mérite Agricol, on Munson. He received numerous other honors and awards, and in villages across France there are statues and plaques acknowledging the work of T. V. Munson.
In 1883, an Italian immigrant named Frank Qualia established Val Verde Winery in Del Rio, to grow 'Mission' grapes for wine production. Around 1890 vines started dying (most likely due to Pierce's disease), and by 1910 the vineyard was replanted with 'Lenoir,' 'Herbemont,' and 'Champanel' grapevines. Now more than a century old, Val Verde Winery is the only winery in Texas that survived Prohibition, and the Qualia family still successfully operates the winery today. Val Verde Winery was among the first to show that long-term survival and success is possible even for vineyards in that part of the state.
Around 1900 agricultural reports and bulletins showed interest in experimental grape plantings across the state. By 1900 Texas had more than twenty-five wineries, but Prohibition brought an end to industry expansion. Munson established a grape nursery and sold nursery stock, with the profits going to further his grape exploration and breeding efforts. When the Munson &&&; Sons Nursery closed in Denison, the collection was moved to the Winter Garden Experiment Station at Winter Haven, Texas. These varieties became part of the extensive grape evaluations that Ernest Mortensen began in 1931 and were terminated when the station closed in 1952. Grape evaluations were also conducted from 1939 to 1963 by Uriel A. Randolph at the experiment station near Montague. In addition to doing variety evaluations, the station staff conducted fertilization, pest management, and rootstock trials.
From the late 1960s through the 1970s Texas experienced a resurgence in grape growing. Seeking higher wine quality, growers switched their variety selection from American varieties to French-American hybrids. In 1974, Ron Perry published Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Report 74–3, entitled A Feasibility Study for Grape Production in Texas. In that study, Perry identified Pierce's disease as the number-one limiting factor in Texas grape production, and he produced a map outlining the probability of Pierce's disease incidence across the state. At that point there was a rudimentary understanding that the distribution of the pathogen was limited by cold winter temperatures. It was thought that disease development was limited to areas receiving less than eight hundred hours of winter chilling per year. It was also thought that the range of vectors was limited to humid areas of the state. Perry's study also cited cotton root rot, winter injury, spring frost, and hail damage as additional limitations that would curtail further growth and prosperity in the Texas wine grape industry.
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Excerpted from Growing Grapes in Texas by Jim Kamas. Copyright © 2014 Jim Kamas. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
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