Women In Wine: Focus On Texas

This is the month when we celebrate the achievements past and current of women, and when it comes to female wine pioneers, there’s plenty of reasons to raise a glass. I began this month with a look at Champagnes’ historic female-led houses and as March’s days ticked by, I was thinking of how to extend the narrative beyond just this month.

Because I think we should celebrate women all year ‘round. To that end, I’ll be working on a series about women in wine, which I hope will take some interesting detours off the obligatory March is Women’s Month road. To start that, the focus is on Texas, the state of rodeo cowboys and Longhorns … that gave us Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, the writer Katherine Ann Porter and social activist Emma Tenayuca, and also Janis Joplin and Mark Kay! (you can read Texas Monthly’s list of notable women here).

But Texas also gives us these women who are helping to make the Lone Star State’s wine scene a little less lonely for women.

Susan Auler, co-founder of Fall Creek Vineyards. Fall Creek Vineyards has a few feathers in its cap: It was the first Texas Hill Country winery, and one of the first wineries started post prohibition, and also one of the first to have a woman at the helm. Planted in 1975 by Ed and Susan Auler, one of the founding families of the Texas wine industry, the winery has long been a benchmark for the state’s growing industry for four decades.

Already a member of the Dallas chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier, Susan Auler is a founding member of the Austin chapter. She has also been on the ground establishing some of Texas’ hallmark wine events, including the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival (founded in 1986 and now known as the Austin Food & Wine Festival) and Texas Fall Fest & Wine Auction. She has held board positions with the Wine & Food Foundation of Texas, Texas Department of Agriculture Wine Marketing and Austin Community College Culinary Arts Advisory. She’s been recognized the Wines & Vines magazine as a top 50 people in the wine world (1990), and awarded the Texas Grape Growers Association Qualia Award for contributions to the Texas wine industry. Susan and her husband also put Texas Hill Country on the AVA map as the applicant to recognize the region as an appellation, a status granted in 1990.

Merrill Bonarrigo, Messina Hof Wine Cellars. Merrill Bonarrigo and her husband Paul Vincent co-founded Messina Hof Winery in 1977 with the “express purpose of merging Old World hospitality, New World ambition and the potential of Texas grapes.” Merging their respective ancestral histories in the unusually named winery, they were early pioneers in helping establish the Texas’s wine industry—only the fourth winery in the state. They planted 50 varieties on one acre—an outdoor laboratory at that time when Texas’s wine industry was not only nascent, but unheard of—at their home in Bryan Texas. By 1981, the produced an award-winning wine and shortly thereafter, released their first commercial vintage. Their Angel Late Harvest Riesling became the first Texas wine to score a 90 in Wine Spectator; their wines were served at George Bush’s 2001 presidential inauguration in and, in 2013, Messina Hof became the first Texas winery to win Top Overall at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and also won a TWGGA Lifetime Achievement award. Today, they are one of the largest producers of 100% Texas wine.

Merrill helped found the Cattle Baron’s Ball for Bryan-College Station, helped to launch the Texas Reds Steak and Grape Festival in Bryan, and created an affinity partnership wine program for the Association of Former Students as well as the Bush Presidential Library. In 1991 she developed an internship program with the Texas A&M University (TAMU) Parks and Recreation department that continues today to mentor students in the hospitality industry.

Her honors are many but some include TAMU Legacy Award, Texas Wine and Grape Grower’s Association’s Luis Qualia Award, and Supreme Master Lady of the Knights of the Vine as well as other civic awards. She has served on Boards of Women’s Former Student Network, Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce, Texas A&M Agriculture Council, East Texas Tourism Association, Bryan-College Station Tourism Advisory Council, Texas Wine Tourism Committee, and was honored as a “Legends of Bryan.”

Glena Yates, immediate past president TWGGA. A majority owner of Spicewood Vineyards and Ron Yates Wines (and mom to Ron), Glena Yates is the immediate past president of the Texas Wine & Grape Growers Association. Yates, who grew up in Oklahoma, said she “got to Texas as fast as I could, graduating from the University of Texas with a degree in biology, marrying a sixth generation Texas boy and living here for the past 50 years.”

She came well prepared for the role after serving as president of Central Texas Land Titles, Inc for 25 years, during which time she served as president of the Texas Land Title Association (TLTA), one of the state’s oldest trade associations. In that role, Yates appeared before the Texas Legislature and the Department of Insurance, which regulates the title industry—similar to TABC’s role in the wine industry. Upon her retirement, her family bought Spicewood Vineyards (2007) and established Ron Yates Wines in 2012. She serves as a brand ambassador for both wineries, assisting with Wine Club and other special events. Upon her nomination for president of TWGGA, she said her goal was to bring the various interests in the industry together and represent the association members at the Texas Legislature and the TABC.