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NICK COLLINSAfter six years of preparations, Joe and Diana Marks' Castle Winery in Tarpon Springs is open, and the plans don't stop there.
TARPON SPRINGS - To make their wine, Joe and Diana Marks decided to use grapes from throughout North America, bottles from Spain and corks from Portugal.
Deciding on the grapes and bottles was easy. But choosing the corks for the Castle Winery led to "the first serious argument" in their 22-year marriage, Diana Marks said.
He insisted on using 17-cent Portuguese corks. She keeps the books and couldn't help but notice that most corks cost between a penny and nickel.
But he worried about pieces of cork left behind in the wine.
"He always says, "If there's corkies, then the romance has left the building,"' she said.
And that's the last thing they want.
Instead, the Markses would rather customers leave Castle Winery with a logo glass, free with every tasting, and at least a few bottles of wine, complete with Portuguese corks. Ideally, visitors also should leave the winery at 320 E Tarpon Ave. with a new appreciation for the wine maker's art.
"We try to give them an education," Joe Marks said, "on wine and maybe even on how to be a wine snob."
That education starts at a 750-gallon fermenting tank, where smashed grapes sit for 14 to 21 days to begin their transformation into wine.
Joe Marks, 61, selects the grapes by tasting samples from vineyards in California, Oregon, New York and Canada. The Markses stay away from Florida grapes, which Diana Marks, also 61, says are too bitter.
After fermenting, the wine is pumped into 100-gallon, plastic holding tanks, where JoeMarks racks it to perfect its flavor.
Racking the wine consists of pumping it, very slowly, from one tank to another. The slow movement of the fluid completes the fermenting process without using chemicals and gives the wine a smooth taste, he said.
"I handle it gently, like a baby," he said.
After filtering the wine, the Markses bottle it themselves in glassware imported from Spain.
Then they add the winery's own label, complete with a caricature of "Uncle Tony," who taught Joe Marks how to make wine.
His late Uncle Tony was an intense lover of wine and had a roster full of different wives. Uncle Tony came over from Italy to help Marks' parents care for him and his siblings. When Joe Marks was 16, Uncle Tony taught him how to make wine.
"I learned patience, patience, patience," Joe Marks said. "You've got to let gravity do its work."
The use of racking instead of chemicals led to Castle Winery's motto: Fine wines made in that old-world tradition.
Customers can enjoy wine outside amid the winery's numerous fountains and native Florida plants. Diana Marks said that once the winter tourist season begins, she hopes to offer "peasant lunches" of bread, cheese and wine for customers seated outside the winery.
The couple started work on their winery six years ago, when they built a building in the style of the 1800s. Joe Marks, a former building contractor who now works as a city of Tampa building inspector, built the structure himself.
They toiled for two hours each evening after driving over from Tampa, where she also worked as a client specialist for Humana Insurance.
It was difficult giving up so many evenings, he said, but finally opening the winery has reminded them why they started.
"It's so thrilling that we've finally got to this point," he said. "We just put our hearts and souls to work and made it happen."
Since the winery was completed, the Markses have lived above Castle Winery on the building's second floor.
The winery's business has been "incredible" considering the hurricanes coming through, Diana Marks said. Her best seller has been a pail of wine, which includes four different bottles and a 5-gallon bucket. She has sold about 50 of those packages at $48.95 a pail, she said.
She said most of her customers come during the late afternoon.
"I never get to watch Judge Judy because we're always so busy then," she said.
Castle Winery offers Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Noir and White Zinfandel in standard 750-milliliter bottles. Its premium reserves, one version each of English Sherry and Canadian Ice Wine, come in half-sized bottles. The winery's selections range from $12.95 to $23.95 a bottle.
Ice wine is made from grapes picked after the first frost of the year. Joe Marks says he is trying to introduce the trendy dessert flavor to the area.
Tracy Manning of Trinity particularly enjoyed the Sherry, a dessert wine, during a tasting last week.
"I can definitely see that with a nice little creme brulee on the side," said Manning, 34, adding later that she would recommend the winery to her friends.
Carin Demilo of Boston, who went to the tasting with Manning, said she couldn't believe how prepared Diana Marks was.
"I'm really impressed that she's only been open 30-something days, and she's so organized," said Demilo, 33.
Joe and Diana Marks say they hope to add three new flavors in six weeks and are planning a party at their winery to debut the wines.
In the meantime, Diana Marks will continue telling her customers everything they need to know about wine and more during free tours, while her husband keeps working on the 5,000 gallons of wine he hopes to produce in the first year.
"It's a labor of love," he said. "It's never work. She loves talking to people, and I love making wine."
-- Nick Collins can be reached at ncollins@sptimes.com or 727 771-4307.