Bob Landon: All In

Veteran Winemaker and Incoming TWGGA President Shares His Rules for Success and His Vision for the Texas Wine Industry

Bob Landon met us on a Sunday afternoon at his Landon Winery located in Gainesville. His voice was still a little raspy from a nasty run-in with some poison ivy. “I made the mistake of burning the infected bushes to get rid of it,” he said. “No one told me burning poison ivy just turns it into an aerosol, which I inhaled.”

Landon had just installed a flat screen TV in a separate spirits bar area of the winery. “This is a big deal for me,” he said. “I’ve always had two rules at my wineries: No live music. And NO TVs.”

Bob Landon always felt like wine bars should be cozy, quiet spots, where people could hang out and actually have a conversation with each other.

“I’ve had customers come in from bars down the street, who were grateful to get away from the noise.”

It wasn’t clear if he was referring to this winery in Gainesville or one of his other six wineries around North Texas.

Landon changed his mind about the “No TV” rule when he started selling spirits at the Gainesville location. Along with the separate bar area, he brought in different furniture and even different bar lighting. It occurred to Landon that his customer base might even be different, or at least looking for a different feel.

“We’re trying out TVs on this side of the building,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes at this location.” He is even bringing in a stand-up comic on some nights.

It’s hard to put a lock on what is most amazing about the Landon wineries: the fact that they have seven locations (more than any other winery in Texas, with another location on the way), that they have 95 employees and have never had to reduce staff, or the fact that they are still making a profit even as wine consumption slows down in the U.S.

Landon attributes a lot of his success to the accounting process he and his wife go through with their business decisions, particularly his wife’s.

The Governor

Landon and his wife, Katie, came to Texas 30 years ago from Missouri. They both had lucrative accounting careers in the corporate world. Their company required them to move to Texas. But after a year, the company wanted them to come back to Missouri. There was one problem. They had fallen in love with Texas. Katie didn’t want to move back.

They started assessing their assets, but also their dreams. Bob had been making wine as a hobby since he was 12 years old. The accountants talked to everyone they could in the Texas wine industry. And then they walked through the looking glass.

Landon said every purchasing decision they made was carefully thought out. “Katie was always my governor,” he said. “Any plan or idea I had was submitted to her first.”

Their first winery was set up in McKinney in 2005. Major production eventually moved to a new location in Greenville in 2010. A third winery in Wylie was built in 2017, followed by The Sound location in Coppell in 2019, A Grapevine winery in 2020, a Denison winery in 2022, and, finally, the Gainesville winery in 2024.

That’s some major expansion for a businessman who follows strict, conservative investment procedures. But the facts are that the company has made a profit every year.

Along the way, they started acquiring more accolades for their wines. By 2022, Landon’s 2019 Tempranillo was awarded the best Tempranillo in the 2022 San Francisco International Wine Competition, which was picked up in the December issue of Forbes magazine. Landon became known in some circles as “Mr. Wine of Texas.” More notoriety meant increased production demands and a larger staff. Bob acquired a winemaker and a whole team to take over the lab.

The Style

I asked Bob if it was hard to pull himself out of the lab. He said it was at first. But he has a great team, including winemaker Jason Dodson. Everyone has received training at Grayson College in Denison. They have weekly meetings. “And I know everyone on the team understands the style I want,” he said.

I asked him what his “style” was. He said, “I want to only sell wine that people are willing to give their money for.”

On its face, that seemed like an obviously ridiculous statement. But Landon dug in a little deeper. “I’ve had a couple of barrels that, in the end, just didn’t taste that great to me,” he said. “We could have played around with it. But I decided it was better to lose the barrel and keep the standard I would want as a customer.

“I personally don’t care for wines with bell pepper notes. Most of my customers don’t either. So, we don’t have wines with a lot of bell pepper notes.”

He was also very conscious of making sure he and his team did not get “cellar palate,” the tendency of focusing so much on tasting your own wines, that you start missing faults or appreciating an outside style. To combat this, Landon started bringing in cases of award-winning wines from other regions for his team to try from time to time.

He also listens to his customers about which kind of wines THEY like, versus just his own personal tastes. This is not always the easiest path to maintain.

Landon Winery currently has over 40 different wines on hand, even more if you look at the shop on their website. It was enough to make Bob put his head in his hands to think about it. “It’s a lot,” he said. “I want to keep cutting it down.” A recent example was the winery’s sangria. Landon thought this would be an easy item to cull from their list. “The minute I took it off, customers started asking what happened to it?” He said, “They LOVED that sangria.” So, the winery is bringing it back. The customers spoke. He listened.

“I could have bought another tractor with that money.”

It’s a very odd mix to hear Landon talk about his business gambles, competing with his and his wife’s strict accounting procedures. So far, it seems to be paying off. He does submit his wines for awards and ratings. But he prefers numerical ratings to medal wins since customers tend to respond more easily to point scores than competition medals.

“A 90 rating seems to resonate with my customers more,” he said. “I don’t have to explain what a Gold medal means.”

But, as any winery will tell you, submitting wines can get very, very expensive. Landon has been submitting cases and more cases for years to one organization, just to get on their list. It finally paid off. And it paid off well. But the whole time he was submitting those wines, he was thinking about everything else he could be doing with that money.

“I’m always conscious of every dollar I’m spending,” he said. He had just opened a bottle of his award-winning Tempranillo for us to try. He looked down at the cork on the counter. “I look at all these corks we just use once. I can’t stand to throw them away. I keep them all and take them home. I don’t know what I am going to do with them.

“I understand the need to submit wines for competition. But I also need a new tractor for some land I’m clearing. In my heart, I’d always rather buy a new tractor.”

Wine with an Accent

One thing Landon didn’t anticipate from the national submissions was the INTERNATIONAL attention his wines would get.

Alberta has often been called the “Texas of Canada.” Walk around downtown Calgary for a while, and you’ll think you’re in Houston (albeit much cooler): the oil and gas economy, the wide-open spaces, and the cowboy culture. Their rodeo riders regularly win in our local rodeos. It should have been no surprise that Landon got a call from Alberta for a shipment of his wines.

Then he started getting calls from the U.K. There have even been proposals with Australia. It’s hard to say if the attention is just from the ratings of the wine or the fact that it is from Texas. But if Phil Collins can be inspired by a John Wayne movie to build an entire collection of museum-worthy artifacts from the Alamo, imagine what a bottle of Texas wine could bring to a kitchen table in Queensland.

Gainesville – and Beyond

The Gainesville winery is the latest incarnation of what Landon thinks a winery should look like. There are a variety of seating areas to accommodate both large crowds and intimate date nights. The walls are tall, yet the noise level is very low. The entire front has tall glass windows facing the main street with shaded patio seating outside. It is a popular location for the town’s annual lighted Christmas parade.

“This used to be an office building,” Landon said. “They had one-way glass for privacy. We had to take that all out. It was very expensive. But now people can see the bar. It’s more inviting.”

The addition of the distillery bar means customers can also get cocktails. I highly recommend the Old Fashioned.

The one thing you may not immediately notice about the winery is how few distractions there are. The music is low. The art is Texas-themed, but subdued. You can easily concentrate on the wine and the conversation you are having with someone. The loudest sound we heard was the continual pop of sparkling wine for customers.

Landon said he puts a lot of thought into the wineries when he designs them. “One thing I’ve learned,” he said, “is that you really can’t retrofit the wine rooms after you’ve built them.”

That leads him to the next winery he has already started: Red Dirt Cellars. All seven wineries are in urban settings, with no vineyard attached. “Whenever I visit a winery with a vineyard, when I go home and open a bottle of their wine, I am immediately transported back to that vineyard,” he said. “That’s an experience I want to give our customers.”

Red Dirt Cellars is going to be on the Red River in Denison. Landon has already broken ground on 96 acres. The property is covered in pecan trees. Landon plans to keep the trees and grow pecans as well. The soil is the classic sandy loam that goes down 25 feet. The winery will include a distillery and a brewery. There will be a chapel on the property. He is also in conversation with Mary Munson in Denison for a spot that will honor T.V. Munson. Details for places for people to stay and, maybe, even live are being worked out. Landon intends to provide a total immersion experience for visitors.

Let the Market Decide

With everything else going on, Landon is also President-Elect of the Texas Wine & Grape Growers Association (TWGGA). He will be replacing Karen Bonarrigo in the new year. I asked him about his plans for the organization. “I really want to educate winery owners on the benefits they can get from TWGGA,” he said. “People forget that 22 years ago, wineries could not easily ship direct to customers. Many could not even sell wine directly from their tasting rooms. TWGGA pushed for legislation to change all of that. We still need to work every legislative session to protect the Texas wine industry.”

Questions will obviously continue into the new year over the direction of the Texas wine industry. Growers are having trouble getting contracts honored. The Dicamba drift issue isn’t going away. Who should even qualify as a Texas winery? Landon leans toward free market principles. “There are 850 wineries in Texas now,” Landon said. “(Sazerac makes) BuzzBallz, for instance, (They are a Texas company making a wine-based product). Are they a winery? I always say, let the market decide.”

All In

As we were leaving the winery, there were some regular customers sitting outside enjoying the Sunday evening and several bottles of Landon wine. Landon spent a lot of time with them, just hanging out, before he had to leave. “Scotty here is responsible for all the electricity in the building,” he said. “He actually has most of my money in his pocket.”

After Landon left, Scotty talked about Bob’s personal commitment to the local community. “Gainesville is the only host city in America for Medal of Honor recipients,” Scotty said. “We have a museum and a huge parade every year. We needed an expensive laser cleaning system for the outside of the building. Bob was on board immediately. If I had to describe him, I would say he is the most genuine person I know. Once he commits to something, he never backs down. He is, always, all in.”