Messina Hof Brings Medal-Winning Winemaking to Houston-area Harvest Green
Messina Hof Harvest Green Winery and Kitchen recently launched construction of what will become the largest winery in the greater Houston area. The groundbreaking celebrations came shortly after Messina Hof Winery received news of being awarded 10 medals in the prestigious 2020 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. The new Messina Hof Harvest Green Winery will offer Houston-area wine lovers these topflight wines along with a new farm-to-table restaurant.
“Messina Hof Winery has over 40 years of operating history in Texas with its estate winery in Bryan and winery facilities in Fredericksburg and Grapevine,” says CEO and Winemaker Paul M. Bonarrigo. “But our groundbreaking in the Harvest Green development in Richmond signals the start of something totally new. Our plans for this winery and restaurant are to work closely with the Harvest Green community and support their values of a sustainable living environment with closer connections to agriculture and nature.”
The Messina Hof Harvest Green Winery will include a tasting room and wine bar, an open-kitchen restaurant, wine production facilities and barrel room. A large covered patio will allow for larger private events and group tastings, and will later be expanded to include indoor event space. Two private tasting rooms will be included for corporate use, group bookings and private dining. Most notable, Messina Hof Harvest Green will make use of an on-site vineyard, gardens and Harvest Green’s neighborhood farm to both produce local wines and a hyper-local farm-to-table menu focused on “vineyard cuisine.”
“Harvest Green, Houston’s only farm-centric community, was a natural choice for our new craft winery and kitchen,” says Bonarrigo. “Also, since this will be our first brick-and-mortar presence in the Houston area, it will allow us to better connect with our already large family of wine consumers in the greater Houston area.”
The groundbreaking in Harvest Green coming right after Messina Hof’s big wins in the San Francisco Chronicle’s international wine competition offers it an opportunity to bring these fine award-winning wines to the Houston area.
“Our reserve wines, highlighted by our recent award winners—gold medal–winning Sagrantino, Sophia Marie Rosé with its double gold medal, and best-of-class winner Paulo red blend—are only available at Messina Hof winery locations, the closest of which is in Bryan and not usually available in retail outlets in the Houston area,” Bonarrigo says. “When the new Harvest Green winery starts up, these and other premium Messina Hof wines will be available for purchase at this winery.”
Messina Hof’s Harvest Green Winery will be their second-largest production facility in the state. It will also provide all of their wine shipping operations including that for the Messina Hof Wine Club.
Bonarrigo adds, “Eventually, we hope to serve the local community with educational programs that work with community farmers and area consumers on seasonal tastings and pairings. Our initial focus will be wines from two hybrid grapes: Blanc Du Bois and Lenoir. Our plan also incudes making wines from new experimental vineyard plantings at Harvest Green that will involve newly released disease-resistant wine grapes developed at University of California, Davis, specifically for vineyards like ours in southeast Texas.”
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