Springdale Girl Blooms Into Sagely Winegrower

When she entered Oklahoma University, Audrey House had no intention of being a winegrower. But a spring break trip in 1997 to California’s wine country convinced her that she nearly missed her calling.

House, now 25 and cultivating 20 acres near Altus, may be the youngest winemaker in the country, although her calls to the “Guiness Book of World Records” have gone unanswered.

“Chateau aux Arc is what I call my place,” she said, explaining the play on words: Chateau means house, just like her last name. And Aux Arc, pronounced Ozark, was the original spelling of the local mountain range.

House wouldn’t discuss the financial side of her business, but she loves to talk about her journey into the world of wine.

Less than a year after her first look at a winery, House bought a mature vineyard (which hadn’t been for sale) from Wiederkehr Village winegrower Al Wiederkehr.

Every weekend, House tended her grapes and slept in a tent until her house was built. She even bathed in the Mulberry River. On Mondays, House would be back in class at OU, working toward a degree in psychology with an emphasis in industrial management and statistics, which she actually uses in her business.

House is six hours away from completing her degree. Taking care of the grapes and going to school got to be too much, so she chose the grapes.

She has visited more than 800 wineries and vineyards across the country, asking questions and learning from experienced growers and winemakers. She visited California wineries five times and the Grand Canyon seven times in her little red Saturn.

House is now chairman of the Altus grape festival to be held in July and is planning to release a new line of wines at Chateau aux Arc’s wine festival in April.

Born in Springdale, House attended Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, although the bulk of her schooling was in Oklahoma City. House now lives in Arkansas’ winegrowing capital, between her mother, Joy Merryman-Duncun, in Oklahoma City and her father, Byron House III, in Little Rock.

House has 50 acres and hopes to plant an additional 20 acres of vines this year. She boasts one of the oldest and largest Chardonnay vineyards in the South. She sells much of her grape crop to other local wineries and makes her own wine from the rest.

In 2001, the first year her winery and tasting house was operational, she bottled 3,000 gallons. House wants to raise enough quality grapes to ferment 10,000 gallons by 2003.

Chateaux aux Arc even won silver medals for its Chardonnay and Altage wine varieties at the Arkansas State Fair wine competition, which was House’s first.

The biggest challenge for House is her limited understanding of tax laws and governmental “red tape,” she said, but she is learning quickly. She has set her sights on growing gold-medal-winning grapes and speaking at Oklahoma State University on how to build and maintain a vineyard.

House is taking the growth of her winery carefully. She doesn’t want to grow larger than a 50,000 gallon bottling capacity for fear of focusing on quantity instead of quality. She currently has five employees: a tractor operator and four people to manage the grapes, wine distribution and testing rooms.

In November, House will marry another grape grower — Thomas Post of Post Familie Vineyards, whom she met after moving to Altus.