More than 120 years ago, Texas horticulturalist and grape grower T.V. Munson saved the European wine industry from its last great phylloxera plague. His accomplishments are again receiving laurels from Europeans thanks to his biographer, Dr. Roy E. Renfro Jr., executive director of Grayson County College’s T.V. Munson Viticulture Enology Center.

Renfro, a scholar of Texas viticultural history, and co-author Sherrie S. McLeRoy won the international Best of the Best Award in Drinks History Books at the Gourmand World Cookbooks Awards. The equivalent of a Nobel Prize for wine and food literature, the awards competition is administered by the Gourmand Foundation of Madrid, Spain and Stockholm, Sweden. The annual event awards books in virtually every wine and food sub-genera. This year’s awards were presented at a gala ceremony and reception for hundreds of wine and food book publishers, authors and journalists who were present for Frankfurt Buch Masse, the world’s largest book fair in Frankfurt, Germany.

Renfro spent 25 years researching Munson’s life and achievements to write “Grape Man of Texas: Thomas Volney Munson & the Origins of American Viticulture.” The first edition, published by Eakin Press, won Gourmand’s Best in the U.S. and Best in the World awards in 2004. Now expanded and in its second edition published by the Wine Appreciation Guild, the book earned the Best of the Best Award from among honorees who won similar awards from 1995 to 2007.

“This is the most wonderful honor in the world, a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Renfro, who also is GCC’s vice president of resource and community development as well as executive director of the GCC Foundation.

Renfro founded the T.V. Munson Memorial at the GCC, which is the only college in Texas offering a degree program in viticulture and enology.

Renfro’s book is the first biography about Munson who developed more than 300 new varieties of grapes, some of which are still grown today on almost every continent. He is best known for his work in fighting the phylloxera epidemic of the late nineteenth century, which nearly destroyed the world’s vineyards.

The second edition introduces new insights into the phylloxera period, Munson’s many papers and publications, and his far-sighted grasp of the needs of twentieth century agriculture and transportation. It details the continuing influence of both his research and his hybrid grapes on modern viticulture and new varieties of vitis that have been bred from them around the world.

The book originally was discovered by Edouard Cointreau, president and founder of Gourmand, who was perusing a museum in Cognac, France, which is Denison’s sister city. Renfro donated his book to the museum because he served on the Denison committee that worked with Cognac officials to garner sister-city designation. Cointreau asked Renfro to enter the book in the competition; the rest is history.

Cointreau founded the awards competition in 1995 to honor food and wine books and to stimulate interest in fine food and fine wine. Since then, more than 200,000 cookbooks have been published by 5,000 publishers around the world. In 2007, more than 6,000 books from 107 countries entered the competition. In 2008, winners from 1995 to 2007 competed for Best of the Best honors; finalists hailed from 31 countries.

In his acceptance speech, Renfro underscored the effect of Munson’s influence on post-phylloxera vintages. He also implied that there’s a bit of the Lone Star State woven into fine European wines. 

“The next time you enjoy a glass of fine wine from France, Germany, Italy, or South Africa, you should give thanks to Thomas Volney Munson of Texas for providing the solution to their phylloxera epidemic – to graft their vitis vinifera wine grape varieties to native grapevine rootstocks from Texas that were resistant to phylloxera,” he said.

According to the Wine Appreciation Guild (Renfro’s publisher), the Gourmand Awards selection has a much broader context than the recognition of Renfro’s book. It sends a message that the legacy, historical importance and quality of Texas viticulture have worldwide significance. The guild believes this advocacy could not have come at a better time for a state and industry lobbying heavily for programs to help close the vast gap between Texas wine consumption and Texas grape production.

Edouard Cointreau (left), president of Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, presented a Best of the Best Award to T.V. Munson biographers Dr. Roy Renfro and Sherrie McLeRoy.