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BRETT WARREN
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Take a drive down I-840 on any sunny weekend this summer and keep one eye (safely) on the south.
You’ll see an idyllic hillside covered in movement, with bright sun dresses, floppy hats, and casual button-downs sprawled over hundreds of picnic tables where kids run free amid rustic buildings and row after row of perfectly manicured grape vines.
This is Arrington Vineyards; a once-small, local operation that, for more than 20 years, has made the home of Tennessee whiskey into a true “wine country.” Much like a fine wine, it has aged to perfection.
Co-owned and greatly enjoyed by country music icon Kix Brooks, Arrington Vineyards is a labor of love established in 2003. It has grown into something far beyond what Brooks imagined, even helping to inspire a resurgent sector of the state’s long agricultural history. It now occupies 95 acres of Middle Tennessee heaven, located 25 miles south of Nashville with its own vineyards, five tasting rooms, stunning views, and an on-property winemaking/bottling operation. Each year, Arrington Vineyards produces roughly 350,000 bottles, welcomes around 200,000 guests, and boasts 7,500 members of “Kix’s Wine Club” in 38 states. It has grown to become a peaceful rural getaway, as well as a gateway to the world of fine wine for locals and tourists alike.
While it’s now a vibrant community, respected equally for quality vino and as a reliable good time, that outcome wasn’t always obvious. According to Brooks – one-half of the Country Music Hall of Fame duo Brooks & Dunn, who have racked up 30 million albums sold and 20 No. 1 hits over a 30-year career – there were many uncertain steps that made Arrington Vineyards what we see today. Even a few accidents. Brooks first credits wine-loving businessman Tom Black, who helped introduce him to the wine world through the T.J. Martell Best Cellars Dinner – a long-running cancer research fundraiser, which features donated wine from some of the finest luxury collections in existence. Then, his famous friends played a role.
“Tim [McGraw] and Faith [Hill] gave my wife Barbara and I a monthly wine club gift for Christmas one year, and it was great wines from all over the world,” Brooks recalls, “I think we were cooking with Lafite Rothschild or something one night, and I’m like, ‘Well, this tastes really good, whatever it is.’ I just began to learn about great wines and got real interested in it. It tastes great, and besides the fact you catch a little buzz, it’s a great hobby.”
Although most people don’t realize it, wine and winemaking have history in Tennessee. U.S. Department of Agriculture reports show that before prohibition, the Volunteer State had a thriving grape-growing industry, which by 1919 was producing 200,000 pounds of grapes for wine each year (Tennessee State Library and Archives), but that stopped after the nation went dry. Brooks’ new hobby had taken him to tour the famous wineries of Napa Valley and beyond, and while he soaked up knowledge, he began to wonder why Tennessee couldn’t regain its standing.
Then he met Kip Summers, who was already running Beachaven Vineyards & Winery in Clarksville, and along with a friend from church who had some grapes growing at home, they decided to find out. Quickly, they came across some limitations. The first batch was actually terrible, Brooks admits. “The climate here is the biggest setback. The topography and the soil are both pretty good, but the climate is just too warm,” Brooks explains. “Most red grapes like to shut down at night. They like to take their time and with a warm climate, generally, you’re losing a lot of flavors because those grapes are having to work all-time.”
Still, the partners wanted to keep going. There was almost no competition in the area, and Brooks envisioned something different from what was already here – less like peach wine and more like pinot noir. He also figured that in time, they would find a suitable grape variety, and so the hunt for land started. Originally, the plan was to build something in Leiper’s Fork (where Brooks already had property), but they decided that would be inconvenient for visitors.Then in 2003,a parcel just off I-840 in Williamson County caught their eye.
“I thought, ‘This might be our secret,’ so we went out there,” Brooks says. “That was 20-something years ago, and at the time, Arrington was barely there, and Nolensville was really small. The whole area was really undeveloped, but it was hard to look at 840 and a property that’s less than five minutes off the ramp and go, ‘This is a bad investment.’ So, I said, ‘Boys, I’m in. Let’s buy the property.’”
Initially, it was just a 25-acre hillside, plus a little more across the street. The next year, the partners bought an adjacent cattle farm with a small farmhouse and got to work. They renovated the farmhouse into what is now a tasting and admin space called The Lodge and turned the former owner’s poker shack into a saloon-style bottle sales stand. Crucially, they planted some more grapes.
“In the beginning, we tried to make it look kind of like Tennessee Napa, and we just started selling wine,” Brooks says. “We really felt like we were going to maybe do a few weddings and whatever, have a little music, and that would be it.”
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That was not it. By 2007 they had a new bottling facility running, and soon Brooks’ vision of quality came to fruition. That same year their 2004 Syrah won Best of Show at the Wines of the South Wine Competition and the work intensified. Friend and businessman John Russell came on board to help create a stable financial foundation, and in 2008, Arrington Vineyards was distributing wine across the region. The next year, Kix’s Wine Club started sending it all over the nation. In 2012, they bought the former farmstead next door to the vineyard, effectively doubling the property’s size and visitor capacity.
“Wine’s a pretty complicated business model,” Brooks says. “I was pretty good at hats and t-shirts and concert tickets, but when you’re making a product that takes three years to sell, there’s a lot of inventory issues, tax issues, and legalities.”
Nowadays, those issues are mostly sorted out, although Brooks is still at the winery every week to meet with the managers of a tight-knit operation. And their efforts have charmed multiple generations. On weekends, there’s a constant flow of guests from one side of the nearly 100-acre property to the other, with laughter and music all around. One half is the original hillside, with The Lodge, The Saloon, the bottling facility, and a new Pavilion retail building. There are also plenty of picnic tables and a hillside performance stage, which often has a local jazz band providing sunny, sophisticated vibes.
The new half features The Bluegrass Barn, a converted livestock barn that is now the centerpiece of a wide, grassy picnic area shaded by massive old-growth trees and bounded by a pair of converted farmhouses, which now serve as private event space and high-end tasting venues. Food vendors also occupy both halves, although visitors are welcome to bring their own snacks and non-alcoholic refreshments as well.
“We’ve got bluegrass on one side; we’ve got jazz on the other side. One feels kind of Napa, but the other is very Tennessee, and people walk back and forth all day, just like I do,” Brooks explains. “It’s really fun to get a glass of wine and just keep strolling and enjoy the property. And of course, we have over 300 picnic tables, too, so a lot of people show up. From bachelorette parties to grandma and grandpa with their grandkids, we have no demographic except it starts with 21-year-olds. After that, you see everything in the world, and it makes me really happy to sit at one of those tables and just watch that world go by.”
He’s also very proud of the wine itself. With an extensive lineup based on affordable quality, Arrington Vineyards offers more than 20 different wines, which along with that award- winning syrah include an award-winning merlot (2024 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition), an award-winning cabernet sauvignon (2023 East Meets West Wine Competition), a lovely pinot noir, a decorated riesling, a few different rosés, and a classic chardonnay, among others.
The most popular offerings are blends like Stag’s White (named after an albino whitetail buck said to roam the area), and Red Fox Red, which Brooks says are both great for enjoying alongside some cheese and crackers or with a pizza. But they also aim high with some experimental ideas. One example is the fan-favorite Antebellum Red, which is a rich, deep red blend aged in French oak casks then moved to used whiskey barrels for six more months before bottling to give it a special Tennessee kick. But remember those early days when the grapes were just... bad? This blend starts with Chambourcin grapes grown right on the property, and Brooks bristles at the idea Arrington Vineyards simply buys finished wine and slaps a label on the bottle. Every wine is actually made by them, even if some grape varieties have to come from elsewhere.That’s a common practice across the industry, he says, right up to the most famous brands.
“That’s the thing a lot of people don’t understand,” Brooks says. “It’s like, ‘You’re selling cabernet but where are you buying the wine?’ We’re not. We’re buying the grapes.” “Just like great wine-makers in Napa Valley, our mission is to make great wine, and we can buy really nice fruit out in California,” he continues. “They put it on cooler trucks, and it comes to us in food grade, 800-pound containers. We crush the grapes, we make the wine, we bottle the wine, and we sell the wine. We do everything, but we don’t try to grow fruit that we can’t grow or make half-ass wine.”
Looking back now, that dedication is probably a big reason why Arrington Vineyards has seen success. For a rural area with a down-home tradition, and a guy known for country hits about blue collar beer drinkin’, starting up a luxury wine label might have seemed like a fool’s errand – but Brooks has helped bring many around.
“I think Tennessee is full of people like me who really didn’t know much about good wine,” Brooks says. “But we have well over 7,000 wine club members now, and I think it’s important to give them special wines that we don’t just put on the shelf. The fact that over 7,000 people think our wine is good enough that they want a case of it every quarter, that makes me feel really good.”
Others have taken notice as well. In 2023, the New York International Wine Competition named Arrington Vineyards the Tennessee Winery of the Year, and a quick search shows the whole region filling up with competitors. But Brooks learned long ago that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. The superstar serves on the state’s Wine and Grape Board, which was created by Governor Bill Lee in 2019 to increase the number of Tennessee wineries, improve the quality of the wine produced, and encourage viticulture in the state overall. Brooks is still deeply interested in his hobby, and on top of working hard to make the industry flourish statewide, he and the team meet weekly to make Arrington Vineyards better, too.
“We all make decisions together, it’s just that now those have become big decisions,” Brooks says. “There was a time when it was just, ‘There’s a picnic table broken over there, we need to get that fixed.’ Now we’ve got 300 of them.”
The team aims to keep improving the customer experience. The gravel parking lot still washes down the hill every weekend, Brooks notes, and the effort to keep birds from “annihilating” the grapes is a never-ending struggle. Their experiments with cultivation and special blends continue, too, but he’s not too concerned about where things go from here. Sometimes you just have to pull off the road, sit back in the sun, and enjoy a nice glass of wine.
“I just hope the joy that we have out there now continues,” Brooks says. “It’s like every growth spurt we’ve had; I’ve always felt it can’t get any better. We’re constantly trying to make the experience really fun for everybody, and as long as that happens, I’m not worried about where we take it from here. I think that just seems to take care of itself. Our customers, our wine club, they’re always giving us ideas, so we’ve got some really big ideas to come.”