Wine News & Events for Oenophiles in Central Florida & Beyond
Next week is a relatively quiet one for Orlando’s wine scene. Perhaps Central Florida is taking a collective deep breath as we gear up to send the kids back to school next week. But there are still opportunities for the oenophile to seize! Read on for highlights of …
Continue reading “Next Week’s Orlando Wine Calendar Highlights Quality over Quantity”
Next week, you could help a local restaurant choose rosés for its by-the-glass list, learn all about wines made from Greek grapes that are hard to pronounce but easy to enjoy, and take your pick of several wine pairing dinners, as Orlando’s wine calendar kicks into gear.
Read on for the highlights of …
The dog days of summer march on in Central Florida, although at least we’re not in Michigan where it’s even hotter!
The heat is no reason not to get out and enjoy some cool wine events, and there are a few gems coming up this week. Check out the details of …
Continue reading “Burgundy, Italy, and Washington State Headline Orlando’s Week in Wine”
It’s an international week on Central Florida’s wine scene, with events featuring wines from around the world, plus fun times with bubbles and cupcakes (respectively). Read on for the highlights of …
Continue reading “South Africa, France, and Spain Highlight Orlando’s Wine Events Calendar”
Photos by Steve Mort
When you imagine California wine country, you probably don’t picture the Sonoma County town of Forestville.
It’s less than half an hour west of bustling Santa Rosa and the same distance south of upscale Healdsburg, but Forestville feels a world apart. Its downtown main street is only about three blocks long, hosting a handful of casual restaurants, a strip mall with a coffee shop and a laundromat, a county park with a friendly cat, a hardware store, a pharmacy, and a gas station.
There are also a few tasting rooms on Forestville’s main drag, but RYME Cellars is not one of them.
In this installment of Hidden Wine Country, I venture off the main street to a simple tasting room at the terminus of a dead-end road. I step inside what used to be RYME’s production facility (scroll down for a photo) and discover surprising wines made by a husband and wife team who aren’t afraid to go beyond the usual grape suspects.
I hope you all celebrated well on the Fourth of July. I enjoyed some lovely Champagne and this amazing view of the fireworks over Orlando’s Lake Eola!
Our local wine merchants are emerging from their holiday stupor (as are we all), and they have some fun things in store for next week. Read on for highlights of …
Yesterday was a historic day for Bordeaux.
A General Assembly of winemakers from the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur AOCs voted unanimously to allow seven new grapes to be used in Bordeaux blends – part of an ongoing effort to protect the storied wine region from a warming climate.
The proposal faces several more bureaucratic hurdles over the next year or so. If it’s approved, it will be the first rule change since the Bordeaux AOC was created in 1936, and Bordeaux winemakers will be able to start blending up to 10% of the new varieties into their wines.
The assembly approved four red and three white grapes:
Continue reading “Bordeaux Approves 7 New AOC Grapes Amid Concerns About Climate Change”
One of South Florida’s best wine bars has closed its doors.
When I tried to visit Uvaggio on Coral Gables’ Miracle Mile last Wednesday, I found the doors closed (see the photo above) and the interior dark and empty. Managing Partner and sommelier Heath Porter confirmed to me today that it was gone for good.
“Sometimes it’s just business,” he said in an email.
Porter was also Managing Partner of No Name Chinese in South Miami, which closed in May.
He says he now plans to focus full time on his wine travel venture Heathen Wine Tours, which he launched last year.
Continue reading “BREAKING NEWS: Uvaggio in Coral Gables is Closed for Good”
All photos by Steve Mort
Napa and Sonoma, the two counties at the heart of California wine country, are famous for lavish tasting rooms, Michelin star restaurants, and deluxe accommodations. Drive even a few hundred yards along Napa’s main thoroughfare, Highway 29, and you’re likely to pass five or six big name wineries ready to put on an impressive, pricey, and often thoroughly enjoyable show for you.
But hidden behind them, there’s another world — a place that’s more about passion than money, more about soil than manipulation, more about history than trends, and more about experimentation than safe bets. You have to look a little harder for this hidden Wine Country, drive a little farther to get there, and pay a little more attention when you arrive. But it’s well worth the effort.
Part 1 of this series takes us to School House Vineyard, a Napa stalwart making elegant wines that remain largely unknown, even to many of the Valley’s most ardent fans.
Continue reading “Hidden Wine Country: Napa’ School House Vineyard Keeps Things Quietly Classic”
Welcome to summer, Orlando! Who am I kidding, we all know it’s been summer here for months, but now the calendar has officially caught up to our weather. It’s time to take refuge from the heat with some wine events that will keep you cool and quenched. Read on for the highlights of …
Continue reading “This Week’s Orlando Wine Events are Sweet, Cool & Blind”
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