s this the best ever produced in Arkansas? Unfortunately, you’ll probably never know

By Seth Eli Barlow * Photography by Arshia Khan

JULY 2018 60 Arkansas Life JULY 2018 61 Arkansas Life he story of John Trickett was first presented to me as legend.

I guess that’s to be expected—the world of wine is full of legends, historic vintages and vineyards, winemakers whose renown stretches with time, leaving behind the factual for the fantastic. And what is wine if not a bottled fantasy, a fable under cork? But the legend of John Trickett is a legend in reverse, a story that, in its unspooling, becomes concrete. I heard it first in whispers: a recluse who lived alone in the Ozarks and had made the greatest wine in Arkansas. It was the kind of story I’d hear at wine tastings: “Have you heard of the mountain man, the man who made Arkansas’ Great Wine?” It was supposed to be a wine of substance and beauty: a wine farmed entirely organically, less a product of the Earth and more an extension of it. The common refrain was that it was just a story, nothing more than late-night hearsay among the extravagantly drunk. No one knew this man’s name or had ever seen the bottles. No one knew if he existed at all. I chalked the story up to the kind of apocrypha that wine culture is known for, a funny footnote in the novel of Arkansas wine. That novel is a long one, much longer than those of some of the states whose wine-making reputations have eclipsed our own. In the years before the Civil War, as German and Swiss immigrants traveled west, a few saw something familiar in the rolling slopes of the Ozark Mountains, a likeness to the vine-covered hillsides of their homeland, and decided to plant the state’s first recorded vines. The 1880s saw the founding of two of the state’s oldest wineries, Post Familie Vineyards and Wiederkehr Wine Cellars, as well as the first plantings in Tontitown, now home to the century-old Tontitown Grape Festival. Aesthetics aside, the similarities between Arkansas and the wine-growing regions of Europe are few. Growing in Arkansas’ hot and humid climate is like walking an agricultural tightrope. Diurnal shifts—the difference between a single day’s high and low temperatures—are infinitesimal during Arkansas’ summer growing season, causing grapes to become overripe and full of sugar, resulting in overly alcoholic or unusually sweet that lack acidity. Rain during the sweltering spring and summer creates a perfect breeding ground for molds and fungus, while storms in August and September, the typical harvest season, run the risk of swelling the grapes so much that their skins burst, and the grapes rot on the vine.

JULY 2018 62 Arkansas Life JULY 2018 63 Arkansas Life Only 400-some bottles of the Rock House Red remain, boxed up in an underground room in the winery.

“Can you introduce me?” For everyone who loves He couldn’t, but he knew who could. After an assist from wine, who makes their life University of Arkansas professor and member of the Arkansas of it, there is a First Bottle. Chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides are essential for Association of Grape Growers Renée Therlfall, I had my first contact Rarely, of course, is this their ensuring a successful Arkansas harvest. Farming grapes in Arkansas with John: a short, wary email, asking me why, of all people, I was “I heard he first actual bottle of wine, but without the aid of modern techniques is generally considered to be interested in him. rather the first bottle of wine a Sisyphean task, if not outright impossible. Organic sprays and We exchanged emails, and he was quick to let me know two things: only made they likened to a time capsule, fertilizers, unlike their chemical counterparts, are only effective on that I’d gotten a fact wrong in a previous article about and bottled poetry. For John, it was the parts of the plant they touch, meaning that the underside of each that he couldn’t understand why I found him interesting. Not quite a bottle of Ockfener Bockstein leaf, where moisture and mold like to be, must be sprayed carefully an auspicious start. We agreed to a phone call, a first step in what I one vintage, Auslese he had while and, in some cases, leaf by leaf. Likewise, organic products are prone hoped would end with a visit to his winery. “I don’t know why you on a date in the late 1970s. to being blown or washed off vines by the elements, meaning that want to talk to me,” he said over the phone. It was something he’d “I picked the label because I after each rain, every plant must be completely sprayed again. repeat almost every time we spoke, reiterating that he was flattered, but it was thought it looked cool and I The idea that a mountain farmer had managed to make a great but confused, by my attention. I told him the truth, that I’d heard a wanted to make an impression,” wine was hard to fathom, but that he’d done it organically, without story of a man who lived alone in the mountains and made the best he admitted. His voice was the aid of modern chemicals, pushed the story into unbelievability. wine in Arkansas. On the other end of the phone, I think I heard perfect,” sheepish, acknowledging the If some of the world’s greatest winemakers struggled with organics him suppressing a groan. lifelong passion that spawned in France and Italy, how could one man master it in Arkansas? A few weeks later, I was stocking the shelves at my day job, when from that first, random decision. he came to see me unannounced. “I Googled you. I saw you worked someone “It was the sweetest green apple in a wine shop,” he said. He handed me a paper sack of clinking I’d ever had, and a muskiness, ere, I have something I want you to bottles. “I thought you might like these.” It was a chance, unexpected said. and honey.” He rattled off the try.” A friend had just taken a encounter, and yet looking back on it, I realize that it was somehow tasting notes as if, even four brown paper sack out of her the most John Trickett thing he could have done. decades later, the wine was refrigerator. It’s a thing we like to Because reality is smaller than fantasy, so too were John and his “Someone still in his mouth. “It was just do, these blind tastings, forcing the wines. Standing with him, holding the wines in my hand, the fog of a remarkable moment. It was other to decide what wine is in our his myth burned away and left a man whose eyes looked surprised the first time in my life that I’d glass based on sight, smell and taste and secretly happy that I was looking into them. “I still don’t know told me that ever thought about what was in alone. why you care,” he said, “but here you go.” He had only one request: my glass.” She tipped the bag over, making but it was perfect,” someone said. “Someone told me that he lives that before I drink his Rock House Red, I decant it for at least two It made such an impression sure the bottle inside was hidden, alone, like a hermit, and keeps all the wine for himself,” said another. hours. I promised I would, and he left me alone. he lives that, regardless of the hostility and a pearly white wine fell into my I would come to know that the wine in question, the 2013 Rock I soon brought the bottle to my tasting group, wrapping it in a of Arkansas’ climate, he chose glass. I raised it to the light. Clear, almost starbright. A swirl. No legs, House Red, was a syrah. Native to France’s Rhone Valley, syrah is the bag and pouring it into their glasses. The consensus was côte-rôtie, a to plant riesling vines in his no staining. I gave it a sniff and ran through the mental checklist of Ernest Hemingway of wine grapes—smoky and savory, undeniably particularly aromatic French syrah. They were wrong, of course, but alone, like a front yard. They were the first things a sommelier should look for in a wine. Aromas of peach, wet masculine and coursing with a telltale aroma of pepper. Months in context, John’s wines seemed a clever forgery, showing a nose of rock, wildflowers. I took a sip. Confirming notes of peach and minerality, later, when the myth had become a man, John would tell me that the cooked honey and lavender, dried herbs, warm granite and pepper. hermit, and spider legs of acidity, low in alcohol, slightly off dry. decision to plant syrah had been an easy one. “I looked at the soil, “Alsace. Edelzwicker,” I said, halfway confident in naming the I looked at the climate, and everything just said syrah,” he told me. white blend of riesling, gewürztraminer and pinot gris from the It would be months before the myth of the mysterious farmer e eventually agreed on a date for me keeps all mountains of eastern France. would cross my lips again. It was Christmas Eve, and I was sitting to visit John at his home north of “Is that your final answer?” she asked. on Riley Mason’s kitchen floor. Riley, the head winemaker of Little Charleston, where the earth begins I nodded, and she slid the bottle out of the bag. The label was Rock’s soon-to-open Rusty Tractor Vineyards, and I had been tasting to furrow into the mountains at the the wine for instantly familiar, though it was admittedly a wine I’d never given still-fermenting samples of his 2017 vintage. We’d come back to his edge of the Arkansas River. He met any real attention: Platinum White Zinfandel from Chateau Aux house, just a few yards from the winery, to warm up when he pulled me downtown, letting me follow Arc in Altus. a few of his favorite bottles off the shelf, including a small half bottle. him to his house, having warned himself,” said I cocked my head. “Wait, what?” I’m used to being wrong, but “This is one I’m saving for a special occasion.” me that my phone was likely to lose not quite that wrong. As we passed the bottle around, each of us It wasn’t a label I recognized. White with blue type. 2013 Circle service in the hills and I’d be lost pouring a few ounces into our glasses, each of us admitting that it T Winery MST. “It’s made by a man named John Trickett,” he told without a map. As we turned off another. was far better than we would have expected, I asked the group if me. “He did it for his wife. It’s a really great story.” A light bulb pavement and onto a gravel road they’d ever heard of the mysterious farmer in the mountains. They, went off. I told Riley what I’d heard. that twisted its way through fields and pastures, I was glad he was like me, had heard the stories. “I heard he only made one vintage, “Yep, that has to be John.” acting as my guide.

JULY 2018 64 Arkansas Life JULY 2018 65 Arkansas Life ISO: The Next of the largest winery in the state, the family has made a name for itself by making wine from native muscadine grapes, as well as Great many other varietals—fans of dry white wines such as sauvignon blanc should look no further than a bottle of the family’s seyval. The winery’s Altus tasting room and gift shop offer some of the Arkansas best views in the state. (postfamilie.com) Wine FRUIT WINES AT MOUNT BETHEL WINERY, ALTUS Not all wine comes from grapes, and Mount Bethel Winery might just be the master of Arkansas fruit wines. If you’ve ever spent Rock House Red will be time floating on any of Arkansas’ rivers, you’ve probably seen tough to top, but we’ll elderberry bushes growing on the banks, and in the hands of gladly taste through the winemaking team of Mount Bethel, the elderberries turn into these to find a second dark, tannic, fruitful wines that are full of purple fruit and floral best aromas. (mountbethel.com)

SYRAH AT SASSAFRAS SPRINGS VINEYARD, SPLINTERS SYRAH SPRINGDALE AT CHATEAU AUX thing he’d shown me as we parked our cars in front of his house. ARC VINEYARDS AND Sassafras Springs may rank among the state’s smallest wineries, His “little bit of fun,” he’d called them, three slender shoots waiting WINERY, ALTUS but it also ranks among Arkansas’ most beautiful. The winery’s for bud break. tasting room is located inside a converted milk barn, and visitors are encouraged to grab a glass of wine (we recommend the John’s home, museumlike in its tidiness, is like an autobiography. Since opening in 2001, syrah) and explore the grounds. A common wedding venue, the He pointed out paintings he’d collected over the years, artworks his Chateau Aux Arc (a nod to the French spelling of property boasts picturesque horse stables and the “ruins” of a wife had loved before she died. There was a photo of him holding an “Ozark”) has championed the mission-style church. (sassafrasspringsvineyard.com) Academy Award, one of the few visible signifiers of John’s career in practice of using 100 percent the movie industry. It’s something he played down, calling himself Arkansas-grown grapes in ROBERT’S PORT AT COWIE WINE CELLARS, PARIS little more than a film wholesaler, but then later admitting that he their wines, and winemaker did have two celebrity autographs he was proud of: John Waters Audrey House helped Robert Cowie began making wine as a hobby when he was 15 and Fay Wray. establish cynthiana as the and, in 1967, founded his own winery. Fifty years later, Cowie There was, of course, wine as well—hundreds of bottles stored official state grape in 2009. Wine Cellars has won multiple national and regional wine awards. at perfect cellar temperature. Next to a bookshelf sat a magnum of (It helps that Aux Arc has We’re big fans of the winery’s fortified dessert wine Robert’s Port. Champagne older than myself. “The bubbles were always her thing,” more plantings of the grape When you visit, make sure to stop by the on-site Arkansas Historic he said of his wife, her presence filling the silence and the room. than any other winery in the Wine Museum for an in-depth look at more than 100 years of He opened a refrigerator to show me rows of Chateau Mouton world.) Aux Arc’s recently Arkansas wine history. (cowiewinecellars.com) Rothschild, their vintages dating back to the ’70s with labels designed released Splinters syrah is an by the greats of the 20th century: Warhol, Kandinsky, Domoto. The easy favorite. (chateauauxarc. ROJO CHAMBO AT RUSTY TRACTOR VINEYARDS, collected bottles around us, their combined ages spanning centuries, com) LITTLE ROCK were all the result of a random bottle he picked up for a date. He Once you’ve heard John Trickett talk doesn’t remember much about that date—where they went, or even SEYVAL AT POST Though it’s not quite open for visitors, Little Rock’s own Rusty about the Circle T property, some what her name was—but he’ll never forget that wine. FAMILIE WINERY, ALTUS Tractor Vineyards is bringing winemaking to the capital city in a 1,800 acres of fields and forest, it’s “When you drink wine,” John said, “especially an older vintage, big way. An on-site pizza oven and plenty of outdoor picnic space easy to find it in the wine. you’re uncorking questions.” Who made it? Are they still alive? What The Post family has been will make the winery a hot spot on the southwest side of town, history has happened since it was made? Who else has drunk this making wine in Arkansas since and when the business opens, we’ll be the first in line for a bottle wine? “I wasn’t trying to create immortality,” he admitted. “I knew I’d the 1880s, so they must be of Rojo Chambo made from estate-grown chambourcin grapes. never make a great wine, just because of where it is … but I wanted doing something right. Owner (facebook.com/RustyTractorVineyards)

JULY 2018 66 Arkansas Life JULY 2018 67 Arkansas Life from a single acre. John called it “beautiful, perfect fruit.” For to know if it was possible to grow grapes that would express the John, Marvilla fell in love with the first time, John and Marvilla land as fruit.” He was looking for terroir, that mystical combination Circle T, and once John had had proof that their dream was of soil and climate, the way in which wine from one side of a road decided to plant grapes there, possible. They were both near tastes different from that on the other side, the reason why some of she was with him every step of tears when they saw the first the most valuable land on Earth is given over to grapes. the way. truck full of fruit pull away. As we dodged raindrops on the walk that led from the main house John planted the first vines at Without a winery of his own to the nearby guest cottage, he motioned in the direction of his Circle T over Easter weekend in to process it, John had sold the Circle T property, the namesake of his winery. Located just north 2007. It was the first concrete fruit to another winery and of Booneville, the land has been in John’s family since the 1860s. step in a plan that, in his mind at admits that he doesn’t know The property’s homestead, a lone stone house that gives the Rock least, had been forming for over what became of it. Most likely, House Red its name, was built by his great-grandfather in the early a decade. Marvilla would be it was pressed into bulk wine 1900s. Even the winery’s logo, a T inside a circle, was based on the the face of the winery, greeting and unceremoniously racked property’s cattle brand. For young John, who grew up in Shreveport, guests and leading tastings, along the bottom shelves of Louisiana, staying with his grandparents, exploring the creeks and networking with retailers and grocery-store aisles. But still, forests of the property was the perfect summer getaway. restaurateurs, and handling the harvest was a success, and Circle T is vast—1,800 acres of fields and forest, rocky, sandy soils sales, while John managed the it meant that John could move that show themselves in the wine. “It had such a distinct smell, I can vineyard and winery. The goal on to the next phases of his kind of still taste it,” he said. As he talked about wine and about his was, at first, a simple one: to and Marvilla’s plan: Plant more childhood, I began to wonder if, for him, his wine was anything but grow grapes organically, without fruit, and build a winery. bottled sensory memories of being 12 years old and chasing cattle the aid of chemical herbicides Two thousand more vines through the fields, of whip-poor-will and grasshoppers, Johnsongrass or pesticides. Nurturing the were ordered, 1,600 syrah and and dogwood. land that had once nurtured 400 viognier, enough to plant When he’d first asked that I spend a few hours letting his wine him was a responsibility that almost 3 additional acres to decant, to let the liquid sit and think about itself, exposing it to John refused to take lightly. He vine. Plans for a commercial oxygen to allow its aromas to develop, I let it sit for three hours, had to take care of the land first. winery were drawn. But then, tasting it on the half hour, looking for and finding differences each “It had already been so good to just months after that first time. Once you’ve heard John talk about the land, his vivid green me,” he said. For John, the quest successful harvest, Marvilla’s patch of earth, it’s easy to find it in the wine. Syrah has never taken for organic fruit was just as cancer returned and spread hold of American palates in the same way as cabernet or , important, perhaps even more to her spine. As Marvilla but in John’s hands, it’s symphonic, all muted violets and dried herbs, so, than the wine that might underwent treatment in raspberry jam on toast, the warm smell of an early-summer’s eve. one day be made from it. Russellville, she made it her goal For so much of John’s life, Circle T had served as a refuge. I Later that same year, while to see the winery completed. wondered if, in making his wine, he had sought to bottle those he and Marvilla were still John managed the farm, memories. living full time in Dallas, she planting the 2,000 new vines was diagnosed with breast in the summer of 2012. With cancer. Weekend trips to limited help during Marvilla’s hile living in Dallas, John met Circle T allowed John to tend illness, John was left with the Marvilla Spann in the first wave of to the vines while Marvilla choice of either taking care of ’90s internet dating sites. Her underwent treatment, and in the vines or taking care of his profile had listed two main interests, 2009, with Marvilla’s cancer in wife. (“That was an easy one,” he wine and movies, and for John, remission, the couple moved to said.) Without John’s attention, could be no better match. She was Charleston to work in earnest the newly planted acres were a hair stylist and a people person, a on the project. reclaimed by nature, leaving counterweight to John’s admitted The next year, John’s grand John to focus his energies on lack of of social graces. When he plan worked. The summer the original acre. John finished speaks of her, his voice fills with a of 2010 saw a harvest of two construction of his winery later subtle awe—like even now, he can’t tons of organically farmed believe that it was he who was lucky enough to love her. Just like Ozark Mountain syrah, all Though many of the myths surrounding John Trickett have been proven to be half-truths and exaggerations, the man behind Circle T Winery & Vineyards is a legend still.

JULY 2018 68 Arkansas Life JULY 2018 69 Arkansas Life in 2012 and primed it to receive idea and labor, it was Marvilla asked the question that we’d very least. the next year’s harvest. It sits who had been steadfast at his been working up to for the “I hope so,” he said when I asked him if he’s at peace with that just a few hundred feet from side. Without her, things just better part of an hour, the decision. John’s commitment to organic farming had left him without their home, though with her weren’t the same. question I’d wanted to ask since fruit four years in a row. Would he have been able to make wine if condition worsening, Marvilla “Maybe The four vintages since our very first email. he would have relaxed his standards? He didn’t want to get into the was only able to step inside it Marvilla’s death have been, “Do you think the experiment “what ifs,” but the silence meant we both knew the likely answer. once. “Marvelous,” she’d called by John’s own admission, was a success?” He tried to “If you beat your head against a wall for long enough, you begin to it. I wasn’t disasters—losing crops to answer but only sighed, his eyes figure out that the wall is going to win,” he said. His words were John culled the first of the pests, drought or hail. Now, casting down and sweeping the slow, almost trepidatious. I wondered if that was the first time he’d 2013 harvest on the same day 11 years after the first grapes floor. said those thoughts aloud. Marvilla entered hospice care. were planted, only one vintage “I don’t know. I think that’s The way he shifted from pride in his fruit to heartbreak over the Those grapes would eventually the right of wine has ever been made. for other people to decide. I loss of his wife, I couldn’t tell how he actually felt about his winery. go into the dessert-style wine “Maybe I wasn’t the right think that’s what you’re here He seemed so resigned to end something he’d sunk over a decade’s MST: Marvilla Spann Trickett. person to do this experiment,” for,” he said with a laugh. work into. In a way, it’s like another death in his family, or maybe a John had told me that as he’d person to he said, “but I would then “I guess it goes both ways, second, more final death for Marvilla. Goals and dreams have lives handed me a bottle the first always wonder, What if? if I doesn’t it?” It was then that just like people do, and they, too, sometimes die. To John, the dream time we’d met, his voice heavy, hadn’t.” John admitted that he’s ready of a winery is dead, and now he’s making himself say goodbye. like he was handing over a part We sat around a coffee table, to leave it all behind. When “Sometimes we just have to do that with things we love,” he said. of her. The vineyard’s remaining do this and it was easy to imagine the winery’s permit expires grapes were harvested in the how different things might this month, he won’t renew days before Marvilla’s death have been. Were Marvilla still it, effectively ending Circle T s the rain subsided, we walked out and would eventually become experiment, alive, the room we were sitting Winery. Marvilla’s ashes were to the winery. I wondered the 2013 vintage of the Rock in would have been busy with spread among the first vines at what Marvilla would think about it House Red. She died on Aug. visitors tasting and buying Circle T, a fact, John admitted all and what she might think about 25, 2013, never having tasted wine. Outside, the pastures with a wry smile, that will force John now, shuttering their dream. any of their wine. Knowing that but I had turned to puddles. I finally him to keep up that acre at the Without her, even the fresh and she never tasted the literal fruit vibrant wine produced in the weeks of their labors is one of the great after her death was a hollow victory. heartbreaks of John’s life. would then Only about 400 bottles of the Rock John poured himself into House Red remain, sitting in boxes winemaking in the days after in an underground room in the Marvilla’s death. In the face winery. John mostly drinks them himself or gives them out to friends. of so much that was out of his always The last few bottles of MST are down there, too. John’s reserving control, he sought solace in them for Marvilla’s daughter’s wedding, in the hopes that, in some the manual labor of punching way, it makes up for Marvilla not being there. It occurs to me that down his fermentation tanks. wonder, the next time he makes this wine, if he ever does, it will be more Marvilla’s death had been a than a time capsule of his youth. It will be a tangible connection to horrible one, both to endure and Marvilla. John never looked for his own immortality in his wines, to witness, and John was glad but immortality is what he gave Marvilla through them, a way for for the distraction of his winery. 'What her to become not only the wine, but an even greater part of the It was a feeling, however, that story that surrounds them. would fade with time. Back in my car, quarter-sized raindrops thudding the windshield, “It was so much more our if?' if I and heading south, I looked in the direction that I knew Circle T to thing than I ever imagined. be. It was too far to see, but I remember how it tasted—idyllic and This,” he said, waving his hands wild, a testament to one man’s drive and his heart. I don’t believe in around the guest cottage, “was legends, but I believe in John Trickett, and to me, and maybe even supposed to be a bed-and- hadn’t.” to himself, he’s a legend still. breakfast; more people to fawn over—that was her thing.” Even though it was John’s land, his

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