Messina Hof Winemaking Facts

We are in the middle of the Harvest season and Messina Hof’s production crew has been hard at work! While all the grapes at the Estate vineyard have been picked, we are still receiving grape trucks from the Texas High Plains. In honor of Harvest, here are a few fun facts about Messina Hof’s winemaking program:

Messina Hof’s fermentation tanks are made of stainless steel which offers optimal refrigeration capabilities. The tanks you see outside of the Estate Tasting Room are “jacketed” by another layer of insulation (eco-friendly and made of soy material and recycled plastic) adding additional refrigeration that can withstand the Texas heat!

Although we get all of our grapes from vineyards across the great state of Texas, all wine bottling is done at the Estate in Bryan. We can produce 45 to 50 bottles per minute on the bottling line!

At the winery, we use pomace (the remaining solid material left after pressing grapes for juice) for our compost program. In a few years the pomace pictured below will be fertilizer.

Messina Hof owns two bladder presses (one of several types of wine presses used to extract juice from crushed grapes). Our original bladder press came from Germany, but in August of 2016 we added a second press, which was shipped from Italy.

Although Messina Hof has a variety of wine barrels, most come from World Cooperage. We utilize both French and American oak barrels as well as “Hybrid Oak” barrels which are a combination of both French and American oak staves and heads.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the Estate winery for yourself and join us on one of our tours! Click here to learn more.