North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

There is a direct NAFEX connection here because the late W.E. Dancy, who was a major player in collecting Munson varieties for the Munson Memorial Vineyard, was a founder of NAFEX.
-Lon Rombough

Roy E. Renfro Jr.
Professor bolsters legacy of North Texan who saved French wine industry
03:58 PM CDT on Saturday, July 30, 2005
<x-tad-bigger>By DIANA KUNDE / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> More than a century ago, a tall North Texan won a French Legion of Honor medal for his role in rescuing the French wine industry from the deadly pest phylloxera. Thomas Volney "T.V." Munson, a Denison horticulturist, helped the French find disease-resistant native Texas grapes that could be grafted with French vines.
</x-tad-bigger>

 JIM MAHONEY/DMN
 Roy E. Renfro Jr. is a booster of the Texas wine industry and sometimes blends his own vintages. He’s a founder of the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association.
<x-tad-bigger> Fast-forward to 1974. Roy E. Renfro Jr. was a newly appointed agriculture professor at Grayson County College. He volunteered to help the Munson family foundation build a legacy for its ancestor, whose work was largely forgotten in his home state.
It was to be a career-altering decision.
Today, Dr. Renfro, 59, is director of the T.V. Munson Viticulture (grape-growing) and Enology (wine-making) Center, as well as a vice president of the college.
He helped found the community college's degree program in viticulture and enology, which brings in about 250 students a semester. He's a co-founder of the sister-city program between Denison and Cognac, France – where Munson shipped his life-saving rootstocks. He's a founder of the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association.
This year he and co-author Sherrie S. McLeRoy were feted in Örebro, Sweden, as winners of the Gourmand world award for their biography of Munson, </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Grape Man of Texas </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>(Eakin Press, $39.95).
A farmer's son from Lannius, just east of Bonham, the soft-spoken educator now jets to Cognac and elsewhere in the French wine-growing regions. He has won two French medals himself for his work popularizing Munson's history.
And he hobnobs with the likes of Art Smith, Oprah Winfrey's personal chef, whom he met in Örebro.
He likes to paint. He likes to cook for his family. And the Pottsboro resident occasionally blends his own vintages, working with an enologist. Most of all, he's passionate about the Texas wine industry and its potential.
Dr. Renfro spoke to </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>The Dallas Morning News </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>at the T.V. Munson Center and nearby instructional winery.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>What has it been like to spend much of your working life memorializing another man – one who died before you were born?</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
It's really been a journey of enjoyment, high respect and much more respect for the man as I've gotten to know him better. It's been a joy and a treat to be able to show him off. ... He was a hidden entity, and still is in many cases, in the states. If you're in France, Germany and Italy, he's well-known in the wine world.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>What do you like about him?</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
The main thing I really liked about him was his sense of purpose. He had a drive within him; he knew what he wanted to do, and he spent his entire lifetime doing just that. Trying to create a better plant on this Earth. As Thomas Jefferson said, the most useful thing a man can do is add a plant to the world.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Most people, I'm guessing, don't think of North Texas as a place for grapes. You think of prairie, you think hot, maybe you think of the Dallas Cowboys – but you don't think wine. Yet Munson, I read in your book, called it a "grape paradise." And I take it that you agree.</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
Wholeheartedly. His reason for saying that was because there were 12 to 15 different grapes growing along the Red River when he got here. Wild grapes. And he could choose from those to hybridize with the improved varieties already in existence along the East Coast. It's still that way today.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>How long will it take Texas to get to the level of a California for wine, as far as reputation and perhaps knowledge?</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
I don't know what time frame to put on it. But if I had my guesses, with the growth of the industry as it's happening now, and with the knowledge that's been gained up to this point ... I'm guessing that our wine industry will at least quadruple within the next 10 years.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Wow. And what is it now?</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
I think we have approximately 100 approved wineries in Texas. And I'm saying we'll have probably 400 or more. I really think Texas will grow at a more rapid rate than many of the big winery states because of all the knowledge that we have at this point in time.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>What's your favorite Texas wine?</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
You've asked me an impossible question. I would just say that we've come a long way in the last 10 years, as far as quality is concerned, I would say that the [medal-]winning wineries in the state are doing an excellent job; they've chosen the right varieties for their locale. Among those would be Becker [in the Hill Country], Messina Hof [Bryan] and Lone Oak [Valley View] here in our region. There are many, many others.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>What do you like most about your job?</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
You'd have to say the students. They come in with such enthusiasm and vision of what they want. Sometimes we pop their bubbles the first day. We don't couch grape growing as a glorious thing. It's hard work. It's agriculture.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>What would you like to see here ultimately, as Munson's heritage?</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
Well, my latest venture with him is that I've secured his home, which was built in 1887, and I'm currently into the renovation. Probably, the ultimate culmination will be when we get that completed and open to the public as a museum, hopefully by the fall of 2006.
</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Diana Kunde is an Arlington freelance writer. She can be reached at dikunde@sbcglobal.net</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> 
</x-tad-bigger> 
<x-tad-bigger>This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow. This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow.</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>
</x-tad-bigger>