All Forum Posts by: Mason Moreland

@Jay Hinrichs that’s about what I envisioned.

-Sorry to folks who don’t care about grape varieties-

That’s very similar to here. Viognier and Picpoul Blanc do well here also, viognier was a bit of a revelation several years back when folks realized it would perform here. I’d really like to experiment with some Greek vines. One of my friends who is also a herpetologist by training also ended up in the industry and specializes in Greek wine. He is Greek/Texan, a herpetologist, and wino, fun combo haha.

@Andy Hains nice, keep at it! What varieties are you guys growing out there? What kind of soils/water availability and capacity are you looking at? Total acreage of the golf course is ~30 acres?

$8MM does seem like it would be difficult to make the numbers work, but I am also coming from a different environment as far as base land prices with good water ($3.5k/ac). Maybe if you can get an additional value add bootstrapped up initially like event venue, tasting room, etc to ease the cashflow drought. Plant a vineyard everywhere as the “rough”? Forgive me on terminology, I’m not a golfer!

From an environmental perspective, I would be wanting to know exactly what’s in the irrigation water and soil there. Depending on how long it’s been a golf course, all sorts of pesticides and herbicides may have been used on it. Soils could be different than what you expect at shallow rooting depths as well due to trucked in fill material, so look at that. A Phase 1 environmental assessment or at least groundwater testing would seem wise.

For financing, we have found Ag Credit banks in the FCS system are the friendliest to work with. Try to find ones with vineyard experience, but don't put all your eggs in one basket and work several avenues at once. Some commercial lenders may have appetite for it as well, but we haven't gone that route yet. I would expect around 65-75 LTV, prime plus 2%. Between 1 and 3 years interest only with annual payments lined up with expected cashflow timing And term of 15-20 years. Don't be shocked if a lender requires you to have all funds for the establishment years of operations and debt service in an account with them to mitigate risks. That can be a big hurdle if presented.

@Jay Hinrichs that’s a neat label name. We are covered up in burrowing owls here in Midland, love em. With how hot and sunny it is we can ripen quite a bit per acre and still get high quality results on all our different trellising methods. Speaking frankly, we don’t know exactly how high the ceiling is yet for our mechanized trellising acreage. It is around 20-38 tons/acre in California using similar methods and climate/soils. At some point soon we will play with the experimental acres to see how it responds to being pushed harder. We will have to tune the main bearing acres in to find where the “sweet spot” is, where the tonnage quality, economics, and being kind to our vines all converge.

On VSP trellising we can pretty easily hang 6-10 tons per acre depending on variety and ripen it to high quality. This assumes you use an informed approach to fertility and water management, nothing haphazard.

*tall, single curtain

excuse the typos please, on my phone!

Loving all the conversation! @Jay Hinrichs, I think it’s neat hearing about these non-residential RE sorts of things from you. Very cool stuff, you’ve obviously had some interesting and varied experiences. Yes, flat is an understatement. As the saying goes, you can stand on a tin can in Lubbock and see Dallas. I wouldn’t expect appreciation anything like California ($400k+ per acre). The high plains attract some tough hardscrabble folks, not so much estates, condos, and apartments. We are agriculture, oil and gas, or education based economies out here. Fredericksburg (Hill Country/Central Texas) is where most of the wine is sold in Texas and the views are, but it’s a much more difficult grape growing environment for sure. 

@Evan Bellingar, it is pretty wild. Yes, everything that is vine management related we are able to do mechanically except for the more obviously difficult to mechanize things like training/install type work and repairs. Think Central Valley, y’all single curtain two cordon type training. Box pruned. Very similar climate and soils to Central Valley CA. The fruit markets definitely sound different here than the west coast. We are very steady at $1.6k-$2k/ton, spiking up to $2.4-$2.6k/ton ifsupply is tighter. For example, within the state of Texas we consume about 10k bearing acres worth of fruit per year to produce our wines, and all of those wines are essentially consumed in state. However, for grape production, we only have around 5-6k bearing acres. There is a large vacuum in the market there we are working to fill. It will be very difficult to get Texas wines exported out of state when we can’t even keep up with half of what is consumed for in state winemaking! One of our goals is to get Texas to where wineries can profitably produce QUALITY price point ($10-$20/bottle) wines that are 100% Texas (everyone knows how big we are on our Texas “brand” here!).

We have several hundred acres in development and a nice chunk producing. Half in experimentally trained vines (ones we used to do proof of concept/testing before the big block) and half in VSP (non-mechanical, high-end geared vines). Goal is to get several hundred more acres into development here pretty quickly in a different location but same region. Reduces your risk profile by spreading out your holdings geographically.

Pay cash and snag the deal now if it's worthwhile, then go looking for ReFi at local banks with rent records would be my tack on that situation. Best case scenario is appraises for more.

Some photos of things going on lately. First batch of new tanks arrived today!

@Pete Harper, thank you so much. What a neat story, welcome back to the homeland! That is exactly the type of community feel I want to foster here in Texas. The more we work together for the industry to succeed, the farther we will get! I moved back to DFW (near my hometown) after living in West Texas for years, and I only lasted a couple years there before I went back! Hard to give up the lifestyle of outdoor recreation, vineyards, open country, et cetera.

I'll check around in my circles to see if someone might be looking in that area. We have several contacts in CA that grow grapes. PM me with some details and I'll do what I can!

Juan,

They are generally scattered across the area and tend to be smaller in size. North Texas presents some pretty challenging issues on the soils (clay) and climate (high humidity, fungal issues, disease) fronts but it has had vineyard acreage consistently for a long time. Someone actually put a few acres in along the east side of 121 there North of Glade Rd south of Grapevine!

I think the natural wine market has a great shot at being a large niche market. It’s a different approach than the one we take, but I think it caters to a similar market slice as other organic/sustainably grown foods (a big segment!). In my opinion the market share for natural wines and organic wines will only grow from where it’s at now. Take a look at Southold Farm + Cellars. Regan is good people, they have an engaging philosophy and eclectic flavors that keep you curious. Their tasting room is truly breathtaking. Theirs is one of the only “wine clubs” my wife and I have personally belonged to.