Wine that rocks

Originally published October 1, 2008.

Don't let the indie music coming over the speakers at the Spicewood Vineyards tasting fool you. Ronald Yates is as serious about wine as he is about music.

The 29-year-old who co-owns High Wire Music in Austin bought the winery last year from Ed and Madeleine Manigold, who first planted grapes there in 1992. With the help of the equally energetic winemaker Jeff Ivy, Yates plans to do with winemaking what he has been doing with music for the past five years - bring something new to people and introduce new people to it.

Yates grew up not far from the Spicewood area in Horseshoe Bay and graduated from the University of Texas in 2001. During law school at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Yates helped start High Wire Music. Yates finished law school, but he knew he didn't want to be an attorney. Instead, he devoted himself to music

marketing, management and distribution with High Wire. Most of the company's bands are in Los Angeles and New York, but two of the biggest names it lends a hand to - Daniel Johnston, the brilliant but troubled singer-songwriter profiled in a 2005 documentary "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," and Grupo Fantasma - have deep roots in Austin.

Yates has his own roots in Hill Country winemaking. His parents are cousins of Susan and Ed Auler, the couple credited with bringing winemaking to Central Texas decades ago when they started Fall Creek Vineyards, which is where Yates grew up picking grapes.

Yates' relationship with wine deepened when he spent four summers in Spain while he was in college. "That's when I really started paying attention," he says, but it was more than just learning about tempranillo and rioja. He recalls sitting around with one of the families he lived with and feeling for the first time the community and camaraderie that food and wine create.

"I thought about wine as a drink that was snooty," he says. "I didn't understand it. I didn't get the flavors and the nuances. I thought it was above me."

Back in the U.S., he took trips to California's Napa and Sonoma valleys and read wine books. Susan Auler said she'd buy him grapes if he would grow them.

Yates had been talking about starting a winery with a friend for three or four years when, one day in early July 2007, he was driving in the Hill Country en route to get more advice from Susan Auler and noticed a for-sale sign. It was for Spicewood Vineyards. He stopped to check it out, talked with the Manigolds and had some wine. The next day, he brought his parents and grandfather to look at the 32-acre property, which includes a tasting room building, the winery and a house where the Manigolds live.

As a member of a long line of Texas ranchers, Yates understands the importance of land and knew he wanted some of his own. Yates, whose great-great grandfather was Ira Yates, a West Texas landowner and oilman whose descendants sold much of the land that is now the Circle C development in Southwest Austin, won't say how much he paid for Spicewood Vineyards.

He says he fired himself from the music company. "The plan was to plant vines and see what happened," he says. "Wait to see if there was a job to go back to." By buying an already established winery, he didn't have to start from the ground up.

But Yates still co-owns the music business and stays abreast of what's going on there. He commutes to the vineyard from his downtown Austin condo every day.

Since Yates took over, he and Ivy have pulled out grapevines including riesling, zinfandel, cabernet franc and alicante and planted more sauvignon blanc, sauvignon musqué, mourvedre, tennet, ruby cabernet and syrah. Ivy says he knows well the latter varieties after spending 10 years in Mendocino and Sonoma counties in California. "Everyone has their own situation and biases," says Ivy, 41, who worked at the Dry Comal Creek winery in New Braunfels for 18 months before joining Yates at Spicewood. "Each site and soil are different. At some point, though, you have to take the leap and go on your own."

The Manigolds helped get Yates and Ivy ready for their first harvest at Spicewood. They answered questions about what worked and what didn't in the 15 years they worked the land. (The Manigolds' first batch of wine came out in 1995, and by 1997 they had 17 acres planted with grapes and eventually produced between 3,000 and 4,000 cases of wine a year.)