Florida Wines - A Tale of Two Tastings

I miss Virginia wines. I miss living less than an hour from Virginia wine country and dozens of great wineries producing world-class wines. As a wine enthusiast, I knew it would be rough moving to a state like Florida, but what I discovered surprised me a bit. Turns out we have a couple of wineries less than 20 minutes from our new home, so I visited both to get my first taste of Florida wines. Read on to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly from my two tastings!

Rosa Fiorelli wines - Photo by Laurie Geis

Nobody ever hears about Florida wines because, well, Florida grows oranges not grapes. Actually, that’s not true. Florida does grow grapes, but not very many of them. There are about 30 wineries in the whole state of Florida which has 53,990 square miles of land – that translates to one winery per 1,800 square miles. Virginia, by contrast, has 39,598 square miles of land and 275 wineries, or one winery per 144 square miles. So, my expectations for finding wineries, let alone wineries that made great wine, were extremely low when Laurie and I moved to Florida. In the end, I did find some nearby wineries (one 10 minutes and another 20 minutes away from our new home, closer than any winery ever was to where we lived in Virginia). But how were the wines? This is my tale of these two tastings.

Grapes don’t grow well in Florida due to the high heat and humidity here during the summer months. But there is one variety, the Muscadine grape, which is exclusively grown in the United States, that can “weather the weather” and thrive down here. It’s an aromatic wine that is usually used to make sweet wines but can work in a wide range of wine styles. Also, most of the Muscadine-based wines made in Florida are blended with grapes from other growing regions outside Florida, like Riesling and Chardonnay.

I visited these two nearby wineries recently to do some tastings and get my first impressions of Florida wines – the results were admittedly mixed. The first winery, Rosa Fiorelli Winery, makes nine different wines, six that are Muscadine-based wines and three fruit wines. The reds were tinny and thin, but the whites were actually quite good. The Arid White Wine was a blend of Muscadine and Riesling grapes and was a light wine with hits of pear, peach, and citrus fruit on the nose. It had nice acidity with orange peel flavors on the finish. The Siesta Sands White Wine was a blend of Muscadine and Chardonnay and was semi-dry meaning it had some residual sugar but just a bit. It had more tropical flavors and was creamy and rich in the mouth. Both were good quality wines that I would serve to friends just to show them that Florida can make solid wines.

My second tasting was, in a word – brutal – and confirmed all of my biases against Florida wines. I ventured out to Bunker Hill Winery one Friday afternoon and walked into a dark Quonset hut with picnic tables and plastic chairs laid out in rows for tasting. So much for enjoying a nice glass of wine overlooking scenic hills and picturesque vineyards! This winery makes 35 (you heard that right – 35!) different wines that include grape wines, fruit wines, vegetable wines, and “other” wines. A sampling of some of their 35 wines include dandelion, sweet yellow onion, cucumber, banana, sweet potato, jalapeno, cherry tomato, and coffee (and yes, they offer both decaffeinated and caffeinated versions of this fine wine – seriously!).

Here are a few of my tasting notes of these wines just for grins:

• Country Cat Natural Grape Rose Wine: Absolutely horrible – tastes like what I would expect dirty tin water that’s been sitting in the hot Florida sun for days to taste like, with an alligator slinking through every so often to give it some additional funk.

• Sweet Yellow Onion Wine: Disgusting – smells like onion and dirty car ashtray. Sweet – tastes like onion as well which isn’t a good thing. Who thought this would be a good idea??

• Bamboo Herbal Tea Wine: Weird – slightly sweet, with hints of kerosene on the finish.

• Foxy Red Grape Red Wine – One of the oddest wines I have ever tasted. Smells like bell pepper, tastes like jalapeno peppers without the heat. A thin and offensive wine that just made me angry, …

My advice to Bunker Hill Winery staff? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should – so don’t!!! These two tastings both discouraged me and gave me hope. I plan to continue exploring nearby wineries (although I’ll have to travel a ways to do so) and will report back to you on the results. In the meantime, if you come visit us down here, I’ll make sure to have a Florida wine chilling and ready to serve when you arrive! Oh, and if you are unfortunate enough to live in New York, Oklahoma, North Dakota, or Pennsylvania, I need to let you know that Bunker Hill Winery DOES NOT ship to those states, so you won’t be able to experience the pleasure of tasting these fine wines until you come visit us down here!