Jerry and Jerri's GRAPE ADVENTURE

Every autumn, the tiny town of Plantersville welcomes thousands of revelers, en route to the annual Texas Renaissance Festival, held just down the road from this southeast Texas rural community.

Lately, though, more and more visitors have been coming to the Plantersville area for a quieter type of experience - to enjoy wine, food and song in a picturesque pastoral setting.

The new attraction is Bernhardt Winery, a relatively young winery with a rapidly growing reputation for quality wine and entertainment. Owned and operated by husband and wife, Jerry and Jerri Bernhardt of Conroe, the winery and vineyard draws hundreds of visitors every week for wine tastings, concerts, dinner events and private parties.

A record 750 customers, friends and loyal fans of the winery showed up for the Bernhardts’ Labor Day Grape Stomp and Concert-on-the-Porch on Sunday, Sept. 6 — not bad for a business that only opened four years ago. “We’re now a destination,” Jerry proclaims, as he describes the winery’s appeal to visitors from Bryan-College Station, Houston, East Texas and points beyond.

“We find that people just like to get out of town. They enjoy the country, but they don’t want to travel far. And winetasting is a very social activity. So the opportunity to come out here and enjoy some wine, listen to some really good music and socialize has a great appeal,” he explains.

The Bernhardts understand the attraction. It was just nine years ago, in the spring of 2000, that these now-retired teachers took their first Hill Country wine tour. “We fell in love with the wine-making process,” says Jerri, “and it started the wheels turning.”

It so happened that Spicewood Vineyards, the first of several wineries they visited, was owned at the time by a couple of former schoolteachers. “Jerri and I looked at each other and thought, ‘We could do this!’” Jerry says.

Next was the McReynolds Winery and 5-acre vineyard. “That was a scale I could relate to,” he says. “And they had the finest cabernet I’d ever tasted.”

Prior to this, Jerry had been making small batches of wine for several years to give as gifts at Christmastime. “I finally told him he had to get out of the kitchen,” Jerri says, smiling. After their wine tour, he was ready to follow through.

The couple soon started looking for Hill Country property where they could start a winery. One day, driving home from Lake Travis, Jerry realized they could live their dream closer to home.

“I had an epiphany while I was driving past Lake Travis, outside Austin: I thought about Lake Conroe,” says Jerry. “People come up to Lake Conroe on weekends just to get out of the city. I thought, ‘This would be a great location for a winery. We don’t have to go to the Hill Country,’” he recalls.

“Besides, most wineries supplement their own grape production with grapes from other regions, so it’s more important to locate near your customers than near local vineyards,” he adds.

After looking for land between Conroe and Navasota, the Bernhardts bought property east of Plantersville in October 2001. Tests indicated the soil pH was suitable for grape production, and in February 2002, the couple planted their first vineyard, with the help of friends.

Meanwhile, Jerry — already retired from teaching, but working under contract in education administration — began a three-year internship at Woodrose Winery in Stonewall to learn everything he could about winemaking and grape production. “People were very helpful and very willing to share information,” he says. “We find it to be a very fraternal industry.”

By 2004, they were ready to begin building their winery. Capital Farm Credit provided financing for the project, and together the couple designed the building. Jerry, who has an industrial technology degree from Texas A&M University and taught architectural design for years, drew up the plans and acted as general contractor. Friends and family members, including their five adult children, contributed physical labor.

Bernhardt Winery officially opened on July 29, 2005, with four different wines available that first summer, including a vintage that Jerry started during his apprenticeship in 2002. Marketing efforts soon started to pay off, and their wine tastings began attracting more and more visitors.

“After two-and-a-half years, we had grown beyond this building, so we went back to Capital Farm Credit with our Phase II proposal, and Wally Hinkle (senior vice president in Capital’s Conroe credit office) said, ‘Yes, let’s do it,’” Jerry says.

“Capital Farm Credit has been here from the beginning,” he adds. “They were willing to get all the right people to do the preliminary studies and appraisals, so we could proceed. They understood our assets on the loan, whereas another lender might not have.”

The expansion was completed in time for the 2008 crush. It included a larger tasting room, a bed-and-breakfast, an events room that can accommodate 80 people, larger production facilities and a larger barrel room, where the wine is aged in either American or French oak barrels.

At the same time, the Bernhardts have expanded their vineyard and wine production, while marketing the winery as a venue for social events and live music.

They now have two acres under vine and grow several varieties of grapes: black Spanish, blanc du bois, Martisan Hardy, and three different muscadines — Isons, Black Beauty and Magnolia.

From 900 gallons of wine in 2005, they increased production to 8,000 gallons in 2008 and 10,000 gallons this year, and now offer 10 different wines, made of grapes from Arkansas, Fredericksburg, West Texas or California. This fall, they will bottle their first estate wine — Bernhardt Winery Blanc du Bois Estate Wine — made entirely from grapes grown in their own vineyard.

What will happen when they reach their capacity of 12,000 gallons? “We like the mom-and-pop scale,” says Jerry. If they sell out of a certain wine, so be it. “We don’t want to compromise quality to meet demand. Our goal is to just live up to our mission statement: to provide quality wines and a fun wine-tasting experience in a warm environment.”

Judging by the 150 to 200 people who drove to Plantersville every Sunday evening all summer to enjoy the winery’s outdoor concerts, the Bernhardts are doing just that.

As Jerry says, quoting another Texas vintner’s advice, “People will come and buy their first bottle of wine, but they won’t have any reason to come back unless you give them a reason.”

The Bernhardts are giving them two reasons — good wine and good times. For more information, go to www.bernhardtwinery.com.