What would motivate over 100 people to go to a winery/vineyard and harvest grapes? Messina Hof Winery and Resort in Bryan, Texas is holding it 37th annual harvest festival. For the past few weekends, people have come to the winery and headed out to the vineyard to harvest grapes. Why would people do that?

Elizabeth Whitley of Bryan wanted to entertain her niece visiting from Colorado. Elizabeth noticed that Messina Hof has been harvesting for a few weeks and wanted to know how the harvest can extend over a period of time.

Robert Breyer of Austin and Celeste Russsell of Bryan are having a date competition. Celeste organized today’s date and just told Robert to wear clothing suitable for an outdoor activity. This was their first harvest and they were quickly filling a bin with grapes. Celeste said about their date competition, “I’m winning.”

This was also the first harvest for neighbors Nancy Nuche and Amber Cox of Bryan. Amber received two tickets to the harvest event and had wanted to participate for years. She called her neighbor and the two were enjoying cutting grape clusters and placing them in bins. They both said that they were having fun.

John Gorman of College Station and Pennisse Taylor of Brownwood were also experiencing their first harvest. They had wanted to participate for years but something else always came up. Pennisse was a bit more forceful this year and now they were in a vineyard harvesting. John said, “I wanted to learn to be Lucille Ball,” a reference to the I Love Lucy episode where Lucy atoms grapes. After today’s harvest, participants will have an opportunity to stop grapes.

Messina Hof staff carried the lugs to large bins to dump the grapes.

Lynn Patrick and Thomas Kraft just moved to College Station in June from Mississippi. This was their first harvest. Since they are new to the area, they were interested in attending events in the area.

There are many varied reasons why people like to visit a winery and harvest grapes. Perhaps it is the romance of it, or just the fun of picking grapes knowing that they will be turned into wine. The Lenoir grapes harvested today will be used in the production of Paulo Port.

In just a half hour, bins were filled with grapes.

Cheers,
Terry