The vineyard was founded in 1975 by Andy Martin, a celebrated figure in the High Plains wine region.  The entire property covers 70 acres, 30 acres of vineyard with 11 varieties.  After forty seven years and the passage of many life events, the Martin's decided to put the neglected, but still operational, vineyard up for sale.

At the same time, the recently retired Preston Alison was roaming the dusty backroads around Lubbock and Brownfield looking for the perfect spot to start a vineyard.  As fate would have it, the two met up through artist, and fellow vineyard owner, Andis Applewhite. The stars aligned and before anyone had time to think too hard about it, the Alison family began their adventure, trying to save a heritage vineyard.   They became the new owners on September 1st, 2020. 

They named it Boxing Rabbit upon seeing the huge number of jack rabbits that called the place home and from a shared memory of watching, for quite a while,  two jack rabbits duking it out, at dawn, under the long road home  train bridge.

According to the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association

"The Texas High Plains and Panhandle region produces over 80% of the wine grapes grown in Texas. Located at 3,400 feet above sea level on flat terrain, the Texas High Plains experience long, hot, dry summers. Cool evenings make this region ideal for grape growing."

August 10, 2021

“But I force a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent”
George Jung

It’s been eight months since my last post. And to think I was planning on putting something out every week. I was planning on painting the inside of the vineyard cabin all Mexican bohemian. I was thinking we would BBQ more; blog more, maybe even do a YouTube channel about this retired couple trying to save an old vineyard. Hardy Har Har.

The work at the vineyard has been thrilling, cold, spiritual, dusty, hot, dirt red, desert, like skeletons and then in a heartbeat like a jungle, stickers and wind, and wind, and wind, nights watching the weather like storm chasers, nail biting cold and boiling hot test from God Almighty, but most of all it has been hard-- hard work, very hard work. Did I say hard work?
In December we started cleaning off trunks. Yesterday, Aug. 9, we were still cleaning off trunks.

In the meantime, we learned how to prune or at this point, at least we think we did. Anyway, we watched a gazillion videos and tried to apply them to our vines. It was pretty hard to find a cohesive vision on reviving an old and somewhat neglected vineyard, but we pretty much landed on four ways to save the vineyards Heritage vines and we kinda tried them out this year. So far so good.

Pruning time is a very beautiful time in the vineyard. From January to April, the vine reveals it’s skeletal and magical structure. How it needs your partnership to make a great wine

We learned how to sucker or de-sucker or just plain continuing to clean off trunks. Cleaning off trunks pretty much requires you to touch your toes and stay there for a minute or two or three, pulling and cutting vines, stand up, move over about four feet and repeat the whole lean over and touch your toes…. and so on. We have approx. 20,000 vines in the vineyard. We hired all the help we could.
Harvest is around the corner. We are harvesting our Chenin Blanc, Savignon Blanc, Semillon, Mourvedre and Carignan. We hopefully set up our Sangiovese and Viognier for a harvest next year.

…. I would give a special thanks to our Vineyard Consultant, Texas Wine Company, our neighbor, and our tireless workers.

Raising my wine glass –Here’s to a super successful harvest.