By: Jim Hannaford

The spirit of Jim Eddins is strong at Perdido Vineyards, and so is that of his wife, Marianne. Without them, this one-of-a-kind winery wouldn’t exist, and neither would the landmark law that gave it the green light 45 years ago.

Eddins, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and an engineer, was the creative driving force behind the winery, and his wife was the inspiration for it. You can get a sample of their legacy—and grab some bottles to go—by taking Interstate 65 to Exit 45 in north Baldwin County and then making a short drive up County Road 47. 

If you reach the little town of Perdido (not to be confused with Perdido Key down on the coast), you’ve gone too far. Just backtrack a bit until you see the historical marker on the side of the road and ease up the slight hill to what architecturally suggests a rustic Italian villa. With its graceful arches and red tile roof, this white masonry structure presides over rows of lush green vines that yield their precious muscadine grapes.

“We are in quite a few stores, but most people want to come here for the experience, which includes our tastings and a tour of the facilities,” says Theresa Grundman, who is the business events and marketing coordinator among many other duties.

The reason for that marker out front is that Eddins made history when he decided to make and sell his own wine. Before Prohibition, there were numerous wineries in Alabama. Since it was repealed in 1933, however, the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board has maintained a tight grip on how and when alcohol could be sold. You couldn’t just pick up a bottle of wine at a convenience store or the nearest Publix or Piggly-Wiggly back then—you had to shop exclusively at ABC stores.

“There was also an old law on the books that said you couldn’t make and sell wine from fruit that was grown on the same property,” Grundman says. “Mr. Eddins was like, ‘OK, how do we fix this?’ and he started working to get the law changed.”

When the legislature sanctioned the Baldwin County business as the state’s “first farm winery”  in 1979, Eddins had already been growing grapes for about seven years to supply another business in Pensacola called Bartel’s. The reason he took up such an ambitious venture in the first place, according to a popular story told often, was his wife’s discriminating tastes.

“She was originally from New York, and she loved to have a glass of dry white wine,” says longtime winery employee Lee Newton. “The problem was she had trouble finding any that she liked at the ABC stores.”

Besides being a wine enthusiast, Marianne Eddins was also a biologist and chemist with sophisticated culinary interests. It was her idea to add a tasting room and gift shop, and she also helped with their line of cooking vinegar made from various fruits and vegetables. 

These days, Perdido Vineyards turns out nearly 50 different products, including a selection of about 20 different wines. Seven of those are fortified wines such as the popular Bodega Mauvilla, a Port-style offering with an alcohol content of 19 percent. Under the separate Boogie Bottom label, they produce three kinds of rum and have a muscadine brandy in the works. They have their own pepper sauces, too, as well as an assortment of specialty food items named for Jim Eddins’ mother. Rachel’s Recipes, which include butters, preserves, salsas, sauces, and pickled products, are made in partnership with a family-owned company in Arkansas.

One surprising favorite is the sweet, pure muscadine juice that doesn’t contain a trace of alcohol and tastes like it just came off the vine. Customers rave about it being a fresh, all-natural alternative to store-bought grape juice and swear by its health benefits. And while the winery’s overall top seller is the straightforwardly named Sweet Muscadine Wine, most of their libations have evocative names and eye-catching logos that help to describe them and their origins.

“Everything we sell here has a true story behind it, and we like to tell people those stories,” says General Manager William Sangster. Eddins hired him because of his strong background in retail management, but his association with Perdido Vineyards goes back even longer. His father, who ran a printing business in Bay Minette, was an artist who contributed significantly to the winery’s branding efforts.

“One of my favorite stories is about the naming of our Rosé Cou Rouge, which is one of our semi-dry wines,” says Grundman. “It’s French for Redneck Rosé, and it’s a reference to the Gulf Shores area being known as the Redneck Riviera.”

Another white wine has a label (created by the elder Sangster) showing a bucolic river scene with hanging moss and magnolias in bloom. The name of the wine is Magnolia Springs, and there’s a story behind that, too, of course. Back in the day, a pastor and his congregation in that community were strongly opposed to allowing a winery in Baldwin County, so Eddins wanted to honor them appropriately for their efforts.

“That was his sense of humor,” Grundman says. “He was kind of thumbing his nose at them, you might say.”

From the way they speak of Eddins at the winery, it’s obvious they respected him and looked up to him. They also admired how innovative he was in many areas and how he successfully navigated bureaucratic and political roadblocks to create a thriving alcohol-based industry deep in the Bible Belt. 

“He liked to say that Jesus may have turned water into wine but his miracle was that he turned wine into money,” says Newton.

Grundman laughs at that story and says there are countless others, some of which surfaced only after Eddins passed away in 2021, two-and-a-half years after his beloved spouse.

“Some people have called him a trailblazer, and I think that’s appropriate because he did forge ahead,” she says, “and when someone would tell him he couldn’t do something, he’d say, ‘Watch me,’ and he’d get it done.”