Arkansas Wineries Recovering From Dry Months

Arkansas wineries survived the harrowing spring months of the COVID-19 pandemic that closed their facilities and tasting rooms and put a severe dent in their wine sales.

As the state relaxed restrictions and businesses were allowed to open in phases, customers have returned, but wineries are still feeling the effects of March, April and May. Sales have not returned to pre-pandemic levels and many wineries have not reopened some on-site auxiliary businesses.

For the small town of Altus in west Arkansas, the center of Arkansas’ winemaking industry, tourism is the key to wine sales, and the pandemic all but ended that for several months. The pandemic forced the cancellation of the Altus Grape Festival in July and the Wiederkehr Wine Festival in October, events that regularly brought thousands of thirsty tourists to the area.

“There is no way to recover from that in 2020 with all the events that used to happen downtown and in the wineries themselves,” said Audrey House, the owner of Chateau Aux Arc in Altus and chairwoman of the state’s Wine Producers Council. “I don’t see ourselves bouncing back.”

In northwest Arkansas, Drew Gorton, general manager of Sassafras Springs Vineyard & Winery in Springdale, said the family wine business all but shut down in the spring because of the pandemic. Sassafras operates a restaurant and an event venue on the 70-acre property, both of which have reopened in modified form even though most scheduled weddings and corporate events were postponed.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Sassafras operated as most wineries did, by switching to curbside pickup or carryout sales. Wineries in the state vary to the degree in which they ship wine or distribute them for sale in liquor or grocery stores statewide, but nearly all of them rely heavily on in-person, taste-and-buy purchases in a tasting room.

“That was extremely slow for us,” Gorton said of curbside and carryout sales. “Sales are back up. March, April and the beginning of May just killed our business.”

Taste at a Distance

House closed her tasting room during the early months of the pandemic to devastating results. Chateau Aux Arc is a small winery with a limited distribution network so it relies almost exclusively on people stopping by to visit her tasting room.

Tasting rooms generally operate by charging a small fee to sample several different wines in the expectation that the taster will like one enough to buy a few bottles.

The drop in people traveling watered down the head count of visitors to the tasting rooms or the winery to buy a case or three curbside for their quarantine pantry.

“I am an agritourism-based business and 95% of my sales come through my door,” said House, who estimated her sales were down 70%. “The amount of travelers is down and you have the different protocols to ensure the safety of our staff, our farm and our patrons.”

House has reopened her tasting room — as have other wineries — but that has proved to be another type of headache. To ensure proper social distancing, her tasting room tables are set up outside, where there is room for seven.

After a table is used, House sanitizes the table and leaves it unused for 20 minutes. It’s a hard, methodical way to make a buck.

House said she had approximately 135 customers on a recent Saturday, a number much lower than a pre-pandemic Saturday, and it was a constant struggle to keep customers masked, distanced and serviced.

“Halfway through the tastings people start [mingling],” House said. “I couldn’t walk out the front door of my tasting room because three couples had got their buzz on and forgot there was a pandemic. They were just hanging out in front of the door.”

Michael Post, the owner of Mount Bethel Winery in Altus, said his small winery also relies heavily on tasting- room sales. He said tourism was down 80% so his wine sales dropped accordingly; the reopening has shaved that decrease somewhat but sales are still 50% of what they were pre-pandemic.

“The [loss] is directly proportional to the amount of tourism there is,” Post said. “The smaller the winery the more important the tasting room is. Larger wineries will have more diversity with distribution. Small wineries are more dependent on wine sales right there at their tasting rooms.”

Side Business

Dennis Wiederkehr is president of Wiederkehr Wine Cellars in Wiederkehr Village, a tiny dot of a town just outside of Altus, which has operated a popular restaurant, the Weinkeller, since 1967. The restaurant was shut down during the early months of the pandemic, although Wiederkehr was able to supplement the loss of revenue since the winery operates a liquor store, which remained open.

“That was a tough time period,” Wiederkehr said. “Our liquor store was OK. We were able to ship. That helped out quite a bit.”

Wiederkehr said retail sales have dropped back since the restaurant reopened on a limited basis. The weekends are picking up again with customers he calls “day trippers,” but all the wineries in the Altus metropolitan area will feel the sting of the cancellations of two festivals, including Wiederkehr’s own.

“We had to bite the bullet and cancel that in June,” Wiederkehr said. “There is just too much that goes in on the front end with entertainment and advertising. It was the right decision but a hard decision to make. When our wine fest is in town, all the wineries get business.”

Post Familie Winery is the largest winery in the state and is one of those that rely more on distribution through retail store sales than walk-in sales. Post Winery also has a restaurant on site, which has reopened, and offers vineyard tours, which have remained closed because of congestion concerns.

House said her RV park adjacent to the winery is doing good business now that the state has relaxed some restrictions but she has no plans to hold weddings or group outings in the near future. She said being the tasting room hall monitor was all she could handle.

Gorton said Sassafras has an advantage in that it has 70 acres so visitors can spread out more easily now that the restaurant and tasting room are open.

Wiederkehr said the liquor store sales have dropped with the restaurant and tasting room reopening. “We have been following the guidelines to a T to keep everybody safe on both sides,” Wiederkehr said. “I wish I could come up with a mask that had a straw so you could do wine tasting.”