About Orlando Wine Blog

Orlando Wine Blog is a place for wine enthusiasts and professionals in Orlando, Central Florida, and beyond to find out about local tastings, dinners, classes, and other events. It’s also a place to keep up with wine people, venues, and news in our vibrant and growing wine community.

Just as Central Florida welcomes visitors from all over the world, this site embraces the wider world of wine as well.

You’ll find tales of wineries from California to Tuscany and from Washington to Missouri (yes, Missouri!). I’ll share my experiences discovering new wines and meeting winemakers, as well as wine news from around the world. And, while this is not a wine review site, I can’t help occasionally writing about a few bottles that make me sit up and take note.

Whether you’re a local, a visitor looking for a sip of the real Orlando, or you just love reading, thinking, and talking about wine, this blog’s for you.

About the Author

I’m a journalist by trade and an oenophile by passion. In addition to this blog, I also write a regular wine column for Edible Orlando , and I have a Level 2 certification from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET).

I feed my oenophilia by attending several tastings and wine classes each week, and I always seem to be talking, reading, and thinking about wine. 

Away from wine, I run Smelser Editing & Consulting, an Orlando-based organization providing journalism consulting, training, and editing to news organizations around the country. Before that, I spent many years running newsrooms at Central Florida’s NPR station WMFE and at Colorado Public Radio in Denver.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading this blog as much as I love writing it.

Cheers!
Judith Smelser