Elisa and Chris met in the first grade in Omaha, Nebraska where their Air Force fathers were stationed. They spent six days a week with one another through school as well as church and Sunday school. Following the fourth grade when their fathers had orders to new locations, Chris asked his mother if he would be “stuck” with Elisa his entire life…. little did he know that approximately 36 years later they would be married!
Elisa graduated with a Political Science degree and worked as an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense traveling to the Middle East and Africa for work. When she would leave after months of work, she would often stop at vineyards in Europe fueling her passion to become a winemaker. She helped her Dad plant his vineyard in Snook in 2007 and then went on to get a winemaking certificate from Texas Tech so she could make the transition from intelligence officer to winemaker.
Chris graduated from Kansas State and works as a Land Planner, designing master planned communities and completed his winemaking certificate from Texas Tech so he could assist Elisa as a “cellar rat.” As a land planner, his skills were vital in laying out the winery property for future expansion. If you would have asked him 15 years ago if he would be making wine, he would have said he would have a greater chance of being an astronaut than helping make wine.
Chris and Elisa purchased their 43 acre property in 2022 and hit the ground running on building a production facility and tiny house tasting room. While Chris and Elisa love still red, white and rose wine, Chris and Elisa are passionate about making traditional method sparkling wine in Texas. They’ve invested in champagne equipment from France and for neck freezing, riddling and disgorging and are excited to be pioneers of mechanization to sparkling wine in Texas. They believe we need more sparkling wine as every day has an element in it to celebrate.
It is the climate, the elevation, the soils…everything that goes into the land that gives us these marvelous grapes.
West Texas summers are filled with sunshine and hot during the day but the land grows cooler in the evenings. This allows the grapes to mature with proper sugar and acid levels.
Upon arriving in the Texas High Plains AVA you are on flat land as far as the eye can see but what you may not realize is that you are standing anywhere between 2,800-4,000 feet above sea level.
The grapes are grown in red dirt soils that on a windy day can make you believe you landed on Mars.
On our 43-acre site we cleared a significant amount of cedar that was depleting our soil of key nutrients but we left our beautiful live oak trees that have seen so much history. We have silty clay soil with limestone pieces that fracture easily. It reminds us of soils we have seen on our travels to Bordeaux so we plan to plant Merlot, Malbec and Trebbiano which is also known as Ugni Blanc. Before planting on our property, we need to rehab the soil and introduce more nutrients by planting a cover crop of clover and rye grass. This will give us much needed nitrogen to prepare our soil to plant grapes vines.
We hope you enjoy drinking the wines produced from these outstanding vineyards and even share them with friends and family.