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Couple Enjoy Running Tarpon Winery

Klint Lowry/SUNCOAST NEWS

Diana and Joe Marks are happy to take guests on a taste tour of the stock at their Tarpon Springs Castle Winery.

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: January 26, 2008

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. - TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. - Before Joe and Diana Marks got married, Diana laid out one condition: "Love me, love my children."

Joe had a condition of his own: "Love me, love my wine."

With the ground rules established, the couple built a life and business together, and over the last three and a half years, a lot of people have come to love Joe's wines.

Joe and Diana Marks own and operate Tarpon Springs Castle Winery. The three-story, historic-looking red and white building with the large "See Us Make Wine" sign out front is hard to miss by people driving along Tarpon Avenue.

Anyone who's been intrigued but hasn't found the time to stop and see what's inside might want to earmark a little time between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. next Saturday, when the winery will have its annual "Wine, Chocolate and Jazz" party.

"That's become our most popular event," Diana said.

With the purchase of a glass or bottle of wine, guests will be free to graze through a "grand gala chocolate buffet" while listening to live jazz and relaxing in the Italian-style courtyard.

Pouring heart and soul

The winery is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day. The building is both business and home to Joe and Diana, and their business is their pleasure. Wine-themed bric-a-brac nearly covers the walls of the winery's gift shop and tasting room. Nearly all of it is from customers who have become friends – or vice versa.

A lifelong dream of Joe's, the couple built the winery from the ground up, literally.

"It took us six and a half years to build the place," Diana said.

Although it looks like it might be a candidate for someone's register of historical places, the building is actually new. The Marks' consulted with historical societies in Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., to come up with a design replicating an 1820s federal building, but still meets modern building codes.

Joe and Diana did much of the building themselves, and Diana is nearly as proud of her landscaping outside as Joe is of the wine he makes inside. She uses only indigenous plants, most of which she bought from the Tarpon Springs Garden Club. As she sees it, nature has provided more than enough beautiful greenery to Florida without artificially adding to it.

A taste for tradition

Diana's philosophy with plants mirrors Joe's philosophy to wine making. Although they use modern equipment to make their wine, Tarpon Springs Castle Winery produces wine using Old World techniques, particularly Joe's strict "no chemicals" policy.

Diana pointed to a caricature of a little man on the label on one of their bottles. That, she said, is Uncle Tony.

"He's the man who's revered here because he's the one who taught my husband everything he knows about making wine," she said.

When Joe was 7 years old, his mother became seriously ill and he was sent to stay with his father's older brother. Uncle Tony ran the family winery back in Italy, near Naples. There, Joe developed his knowledge and love of wine making.

One example of this knowledge is in how he selects his grapes. The trick is in the seeds, he explained. By chewing on the grape seeds, a trained tongue can discern from the bitterness if the grapes have the right amount of pectin, an element that is important in the fermentation process.

"There are only five or six old men in Italy who still do it this way," he said.

Most winemakers add pectin to their wine. The plant-derived gelling agent and food stabilizer is inexpensive and easy to use but takes away from a wine's authentic qualities, in Joe's opinion.

At present, Tarpon Springs Castle Winery has a production capacity of about 5,000 gallons at any given time.

"We're a boutique winery," Joe said.

With a winery this size, Joe and Diane can maintain the personal touch to every step of the wine making process, and stick to the standards Joe was raised to respect.

Besides the no-chemical rule and careful grape selection, Joe takes the idea of "no wine before its time" seriously. Each of his varieties ages two to three years before it is bottled.

His Shiraz, for example, is allowed to age three years, as opposed to the "33-day wonders" as he calls them, that most people are familiar with from Australia and New Zealand.

Town spirits

Business has been good since the winery has opened its doors, and getting better, largely on reputation. A 2006 Small Business of the Year Award from the Tarpon Springs Chamber of Commerce helped get the word out further, and helped an ongoing reciprocal air of goodwill between the business and the community.

"Diana gives bottles of wine to nonprofits," Joe said. "If you're a non-profit organization, she'll give you a bottle of wine for your silent auction."

On the flip side, friends are eager to volunteer whenever a new batch is bottled and it's time for a "labeling party."

Depending on when they come, guests can see the wine making process. At any time, they can sample the end result. For $5.50 a person, guests can sample each of Joe's wines. The price includes tastes of all 13 varieties available; and guests get to keep their glasses.

"That way I don't have to wash so many glasses," Diana said.

For more information about Tarpon Springs Castle Winery, or next Saturday's "Wine, Chocolate and Jazz" party, call 727-943-7029, or visit its Web site.

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