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Yes indeed, South Florida has wine country. They may not grow grapes, but Schnebly Redland's Winery bottles up the tropical essence of South Florida in an array of unique flavors. It’s well-known that tropical heat and humidity are death to the fragile chardonnay, pinot grigio or even the warmth-loving malbec, but they are just the thing when growing passionfruit, carambola, mango and guava.

Owners Peter and Denisse Schnebly met while working in the fruit import/export business. Looking to take advantage of all the b-fruits (fruits that due to some cosmetic blemish never make it to retail markets), the Schneblys decided to try their hand at making wine. The result is a unique South Florida product. The winery currently offers tastings ($5) seven days a week and tours ($7) on Saturday and Sunday. Although the winery started out in a double-wide trailer, today it has expanded into a sprawling complex of interconnected chickees interspersed with waterfalls and pavilions crafted out of the limestone bedrock. Following the Schneblys’ philosophy of utilizing natural and organic processes, the ponds and limestone waterfalls are built using local materials and labor. The tropical fruit wines can be served as table wines, especially the oak-aged carambola wine or the lychee wine, or after dinner drinks, like the fragrant guava and mango. The Schneblys tropical fruit wines can be found at grocery stores throughout South Florida, but for the full experience you have to walk through the bee-humming passion fruit vines and see the fermenting process at work.

Schnebly Redland's Winery [Official Site]

When Sara at All Purpose Dark described the wine list at Bourbon Steak as "epic" and included a link to it, we thought we'd take a look. We kept scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling, and oh-my-goodness-it-keeps going. Epic is certainly an apt description.

A note here, while we're on the topic. We've had one or two people request that we include wine lists along with menus at the MenuPages South Florida site. Bourbon Steak is a prime example why we generally don't include wine lists with the online menus: they're too long. If it's a short one, we'll consider it, but often wine lists can be as long as the food menu, and they tend to change regularly. So it just makes our lives a little easier to not include them online.

So, back to this crazy-long wine list at Bourbon Steak. It's the kind of place that deals in decadence (duck fat fries anyone? How about some butter-poached prime rib?), so it's fitting to have a collection of 7,000 bottles of wine. But can anyone actually make a decision in, say, 15 minutes when there are so many choices? There are over 100 types of pinot noir alone. We'd feel overwhelmed; then again, that's what the sommelier is there for.

As for prices, we did a quick, unscientific check of the prices using cut-and-paste and Google. Here's what we found:

• A search for Melville Donna's Santa Rita Hills 2004 Syrah, which is $93 at the restaurant, turned up prices around $32-36.
• Next, a malbec from Mendoza, Catena Alta 2004. It's $95 in the restaurant, and $45-50 retail.
• Alta Rangi Pinot Noir 2004 from New Zealand is listed under the "Secrets of the Sommelier." It's $99, and we found it listed at a wine shop's website for $60.
• And finally, the Aubrey Brut NV, one of the various Champagnes offered, is $111. We found prices that varied from $50 to $55 online.

All in all, not bad. Those are pretty standard markups for a fine dining restaurant; actually, that pinot noir is a pretty good deal.

Bourbon Steak [All Purpose Dark]
Bourbon Steak [MenuPages]
Bourbon Steak [Official Site]

Most of the wine tastings we post here involve regional themes, which, while we're sure is interesting, doesn't sound nearly as fun as a blind tasting. Think of the great surprises! Think of watching some pretentious know-it-all mix up his wines! Great fun.

Do you have what it takes, you may be surprised! No outside stimuli, no labels, no prices, no vintages, JUST YOU AND THE JUICE! Everything we taste this night will be covered, as not to sway you impressions before you sample these goodies. Many of the wines will surprise you; the quality, vintage and price points.

The event starts at 6:30 tomorrow night, and RSVPs are necessary. For $10, you get to taste the wines and take home a glass.

Wolfe's Wine Shop
124 Miracle Mile in Coral Gables
305-445-4567

Blind Tasting for Wolfe's "Cubs" [Local Wine Events]
Wolfe's Wine Shoppe [Official Site]

The 6th Annual Miami International Wine Fair is coming to the Miami Beach Convention Center this weekend, expected to bring in 5,000 visitors. It's basically a big trade show, which we generally tend to find a bit dull if one is just visiting and isn't actually involved in the business. This one, however, features some interesting seminars on Saturday and Sunday on topics like climate change, finding good French wines under $20, and mastering the art of blind tasting. They don't come cheap though; each seminar will cost $15-75, although you can buy a one-day seminar pass for $100 to save money if you plan to sit in on multiple ones. And there's a basic Introduction to Wine Appreciation on Sunday at 4 p.m. that is completely free.

The public won't be allowed on the main floor of the trade show during the morning and early afternoon, but you can purchase tickets for the Grand Tasting on both Saturday and Sunday evenings for $75 or $120 (VIP — you get an extra hour and a few special wines). If you do splurge for the Grand Tasting, we suggest doing it on Sunday, when a bunch of local restaurants will participate in a wine and food pairing competition. It's kind of like a Top Chef Quickfire challenge: chefs get 30 minutes to prepare their signature dishes, while their sommeliers scour the main floor of the trade show to find wines to pair with each course. We'd keep an eye on Cacao, Talula and Johnny V.

Miami International Wine Fair [Official Site]

We felt ambitious this morning, and we had grand plans to sift through the list of restaurants in Florida recently given awards from Wine Spectator. We were going to post all of the South Florida restaurants here. When we realized we were only halfway through the Florida list and already had 41 SoFla restaurants, we decided to forgo what would've been the longest blog post ever and instead encourage you to peruse the Florida list or search by city.

Continue reading "The Wine List: Wine Spectator Awards" »

There's been some heated discussion at the Chowhound Florida board over an article in July's Food & Wine magazine that mentions Miami and Las Vegas as two cities with overpriced wine lists. From the article:

I asked my friend Nick Ramkowsky, a wine importer who does a lot of business there. "Wine pricing in Miami is just a function of what they can get away with," Nick said. His company, Vine Connections, specializes in Argentine wines. One of Nick's producers is Susana Balbo, who makes some great value wines under the Crios label that generally retail for about $15. And yet the 2005 Crios Torrontes costs a cool $49 at Johnny V in Miami Beach—or five times wholesale. When I told Nick what I'd found, he sent back an impassioned reply: "That's more than outrageous. That should be considered a crime."

So what's a diner to do?

Continue reading "The Wine List: Miami's Overpriced Wine" »