The Seaton family has farming in their blood. They are generational farmers and have been farming cotton since they remember.
“We are generation farmers,” said Katy Jane Seaton. “Cotton farming started clear back to everyone’s great grandad here.”
But in recent years, they’ve expanded to other row crops like peanuts. And most recently, they’ve added grapes.
“The grapes have the ability to have a much larger return on investment with a much smaller impact,” Seaton said. “One 20 acre vineyard, it makes as an amateur vineyard, it makes nine-bail cotton as they say.”
Grapes need much less water than cotton and do better in unpredicatble weather.
“It was a really great use of all of the resources you already have. It’s a great use of water. Traditionally grapes take less water than row crops,” she said.
But for this family, it’s not just grapes they are growing, they also developed their own wine label and company called Farmhouse Vineyards.
“It takes the average mean of grapes in Texas is $1500 a ton. It basically changes it into $3000 a tony by selling it in the bottle,” she said.
But although they’re excited about the new venture, Seaton said a new business can always be an adjustment.
“For some of the West Texas cotton farmers families, who always have been kind of shy and quiet and said very little and spent the bulk of their time tin the field, that can be an adjustment,” she said.
But for Seaton, she’s most excited to expand peoples knowledge of wine.
“Lots of time people say ‘I don’t drink wine and I don’t like wine,’ and that makes me sad,” she said. “You cannot quantify the billions of wines that are out there. Unless you have tried half a million of those, you don’t know if you like wine or not.”
Next up, they’re opening a wine tasting room in Brownfield located at her husband’s family’s first farm house.
“I want the community to have a space to be really proud of,” Seaton said. “It’s not about creating a space for Farmhouse Vineyards.”
CLICK HERE for more information on Farmhouse Vineyards.
