Man of unexpected taste: How this Kansas farmer’s sweet pivot grew into a destination winery
August 30, 2024 | Nikki Overfelt Chifalu
Startland News’ Startup Road Trip series explores innovative and uncommon ideas finding success in rural America and Midwestern startup hubs outside the Kansas City metro.
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PAOLA, Kansas — When Mark Allison planted elderberries in 2010 on his 42-acre property in rural Miami County, he didn’t envision making his own wine and opening a tasting room, he said.
Bottles of Elderberry Wine at Fossil Springs Winery near Paola, Kansas; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News
The owner of Fossil Springs Winery — known for its all-natural berry wines — planned to sell elderberry juice, which is popular for its medicinal benefits, online and at farmer’s markets as a way to supplement his retirement income, he continued.
“I started getting a lot of juice in 2012 off of them,” Allison explained. “I drank wine anyway, so I started making wine with the elderberries. … By 2016, I had a pretty good product of dry elderberry wine.”
Today, he sells his elderberry, blackberry, blueberry, and strawberry wines in more than 20 area liquor stores and has a tasting room — open Friday through Sunday — overlooking his elderberry fields.
Fossil Springs wine — named after the giant limestone the winery sits on (and through which underground springs have carved their paths into the stones, exposing fossils that were deposited centuries ago) — also doesn’t have any added artificial flavors or colorings, he noted.
“It all comes from the fruit fermented in the skins or elderberry juice,” Allison said. “So it’s unique in that way. It’s a fruit wine, but it’s a higher alcohol content than most fruit wines.”
“You taste the sweetness up front on the semi-sweet and sweet ones, and then it’s dry on the backside,” he said, emphasizing the wine’s uncommon attributes. “Some people like it. Some people don’t. Everybody’s got their own taste, but mostly everybody finds something here that they like.”
The tasting room at Fossil Springs Winery near Paola, Kansas; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News
Fossil Springs Elderberry Farm and Winery near Paola, Kansas; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News
Allison began selling to Kansas liquor stores in 2017, he noted, stocking his elderberry wine in about 60 shops state-wide from Atchison down to Coffeyville and out to Manhattan. But when the pandemic hit, in-store wine tastings were corked and he sought a solution closer to home.
The tasting room on his Miami County property opened in fall 2022.
“I always just wanted to sell it out of liquor stores,” Allison said. “I didn’t envision having people coming out to my farm and opening a tasting room, but COVID changed all that. I had a bunch of tractors and different things in this building, and I took them all out and scrapped them and sold them. I put concrete down and some insulation and closed off the front and made a little place for people to come out.”
“It’s been good though and it’s growing,” he added, noting that Fossil Springs is one of the Sunday stops on the Miami County Wine Trolley, which has increased traffic to the destination winery, less than an hour south of Kansas City.
Strawberry Wine at Fossil Springs Winery near Paola, Kansas; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News
Allison has also expanded his wine offerings. After listening to customer feedback, he said, he added a semi-sweet and sweet elderberry option. Plus he launched into other fruits. In 2018, he went to local farms and picked strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries and started making dry, semi-sweet, and sweet options in all three berry varieties.
Although he doesn’t grow the other berries, he still does his best to source them all locally.
“I ferment everything I get as whole fruit and I ferment it in the skins,” Allison explained, “except for the elderberries. I press the elderberry juice out of my elderberries because it’s got a lot of tannin to it. If I don’t do that, it’d be kind of harsh, so it calms it down.”
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This story is made possible by Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures.
Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures (EGV) is a business unit of NetWork Kansas supporting innovative, high-growth entrepreneurs in the State of Kansas. NetWork Kansas promotes an entrepreneurial environment by connecting entrepreneurs and small business owners with the expertise, education and economic resources they need to succeed.
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