Altus, Arkansas · Founded 1951
A family-owned Altus vineyard and winery whose Post-family wine tradition dates to the 1880s and whose present Post Winery began in 1951.
Post Familie Vineyards is a family-owned vineyard and winery on St. Mary's Mountain in Altus, Arkansas. The Post family's local wine-making tradition began in the 1880s, but the present Post Winery dates to 1951, when Jacob Post purchased the Altus Cooperative Winery. Today the business operates a retail store and tasting bar while carrying forward a multi-generation Arkansas wine legacy.
The Post family's wine-making roots developed in the Altus area during the 1880s. Jacob Post and his wife Anna made wine from wild grapes, fruits, and berries before acquiring grape cuttings and expanding the family wine business.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025
National Prohibition began. Accounts of the Post family describe continued legal personal wine production and sacramental-wine allowances, while Katherine Post was later jailed for making and selling wine.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025; Northwest Arkansas News, "A brief history of winemaking in the Wine Capitol of Arkansas," July 25, 2025
After Prohibition, Katherine Post obtained federal bonded winery permit BW11 and an Arkansas license to manufacture and sell wine.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025; Springfield News-Leader, "Exploring the roots of Arkansas wine," July 3, 2015
Katherine Post's BW11 permit ended, and she and other Altus wine producers joined to form the Altus Cooperative Winery, which received bonded winery permit BW106.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025
Jacob Post purchased the Altus Cooperative Winery and started the present Post Winery, retaining the BW106 bonded-winery number.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025
After Jacob Post's death in 1951, his son Matt Post took over the winery, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025
Post Winery continues to operate a family-owned vineyard, retail store, and tasting bar at 1700 St. Mary's Mountain Road in Altus.
Source: Post Winery, official website, accessed September 1, 2026; Arkansas Grown, "Post Familie Vineyards," February 24, 2026
Every claim gets rated. A business's own website can never earn "documented."
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas traces the family's wine-making history to the German and Swiss Catholic immigration into Altus in the 1880s and identifies Jacob Post and his wife Anna as early family wine makers. This establishes a family tradition, not necessarily the continuous legal identity of the present Post Winery.
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas states that Katherine Post was sent to jail for making and selling wine during Prohibition. Recent Arkansas reporting also describes legal personal-production and sacramental-wine allowances in the period. No contemporaneous court docket or newspaper account was independently reviewed here, so details about a raid, the precise charge, a specific year, or a religious-services defense remain unverified.
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas reports that Katherine Post held bonded winery number BW11 until 1943. It does not support the candidate's claim that Mathew Post Sr. obtained that permit, and the permit number alone should not be turned into an unsourced ranking among Arkansas wineries.
The claim combines an 1880s family wine-making tradition with the present Post Winery's separate 1951 formation after the Altus Cooperative Winery period. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas identifies neighboring Wiederkehr Wine Cellars—not Post—as Arkansas's oldest operational winery, continually in business from 1880 to the present.
The current Post Winery site describes the vineyard as family-owned, names John Post as CEO, and lists active retail-store and tasting-bar hours. Arkansas Grown likewise lists current wine, grape juice, fruit, and tasting-room availability.
A 2020 Arkansas feature describes Post Familie as Arkansas's oldest wine-producing family. That framing is credible given the documented 1880s family history, but the source set reviewed here does not contain a systematic comparison of every Arkansas wine-producing family.
Post Winery has operated as one uninterrupted commercial winery since Jacob Post founded it in 1880.
The Post family's wine-making history reaches to the 1880s, but the present Post Winery began in 1951 after Katherine Post's BW11 permit period and the intervening Altus Cooperative Winery operation.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025
Mathew Post Sr. received the family's post-Prohibition bonded winery permit in 1935.
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas identifies Katherine Post as the holder of bonded winery permit BW11 until 1943. The current record does not support assigning that permit to Mathew Post Sr.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025
Post and Wiederkehr are joint holders of Arkansas's oldest continuously operating winery title because both have 1880 origins.
The two businesses have different historical lineages. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas identifies Wiederkehr as Arkansas's oldest operational winery, continually in business from 1880 to the present, while it dates the present Post Winery to 1951 after the Altus Cooperative Winery period.
Source: Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Post Familie Vineyards and Winery," updated May 5, 2025; Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "Wiederkehr Wine Cellars, Inc.," updated May 28, 2025
Post survived because a family tradition adapted across several different business eras instead of remaining frozen in a single founding story. The Posts made fruit wines in the Altus area before Prohibition, Katherine Post held a post-Prohibition bonded-winery permit, and the family later participated in the Altus Cooperative Winery before Jacob Post formed the present Post Winery in 1951. Modern family leadership, wine and juice production, grape cultivation, and a public tasting experience keep that broader lineage active without pretending the corporate history was a single uninterrupted entity.
The Post family's wine-making tradition in Altus, Arkansas, began in the 1880s with Jacob Post and his wife Anna. During and after Prohibition, the family’s wine activity moved through Katherine Post's BW11 bonded-winery permit and the Altus Cooperative Winery. The present Post Winery began in 1951 when Jacob Post purchased the cooperative, and the family vineyard and tasting business remains active today.
No—not under the strict claim of Arkansas's oldest continuously operating winery. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas identifies Wiederkehr Wine Cellars as the state's oldest operational winery, continually in business from 1880 to the present. Post has an important 1880s family wine-making lineage, but the present Post Winery was formed in 1951 after the Altus Cooperative Winery period.
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says Katherine Post was sent to jail for making and selling wine during Prohibition. Arkansas reporting also describes legal personal-production and sacramental-wine exceptions used by local wine families, but this review did not locate a court docket or contemporary article confirming the candidate's more detailed raid and religious-services story.
The present Post Winery began in 1951, when Jacob Post purchased the Altus Cooperative Winery and retained its bonded-winery number BW106, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. That business date is different from the Post family's earlier wine-making history in the Altus area, which dates to the 1880s.
1700 St Marys Mountain Rd, Altus, AR 72821
(479) 468-6400
The current winery site lists a retail store and tasting bar at 1700 St. Mary's Mountain Road; check current hours before a Sunday visit because the official site lists Sunday as closed.