Florida Wine Country

For Ryan's 30th birthday, we were planning on going on a surf trip....that didn't work out. Instead, we decided to tour Florida's world famous wine country. What's that? You say it's not world famous?! And Florida doesn't even have a wine country??? Shame on you! We set out to explore a few of Florida's wineries and vineyards and this is what we found:

Lakeridge Winery
We actually didn't go to Lakeridge Winery on our wine country tour because we have already been there but it is near the others if you wish to check it out. You can click the link above for our 2008 trip there.

Florida Estates Winery

Our first stop was Florida Estates Winery in Land O'Lakes. We were in luck and they just happened to be hosting a festival while we were there....when we showed up there were maybe 5 cars, so we were a bit skeptical, but this place is chock full of wine information! (And got pretty crowded as we left) For $3.50 you can partake in a tasting of the 7-8 wines that they offer ($2.50 to keep the glass) and along with the tasting, you are given a lesson in basic Wine 101 by wine maker, cellar master and tasting expert, Ron Hunt (shown below demonstrating how to be a wine snob).

While we tasted the wine Ron told us about the glassy winged sharpshooter bug that can infect grapes with a disease that kills the vine and that the blanc du bois grape is especially at risk. (This was very interesting to me..you might not care)

Mmmm....buggy!

If you are interested in learning "All About Wine" and how each and every state produces wine (I think we might have to test this out at some point), you can listen to Ron Hunt on Blog Talk Radio. For Florida Estates Winery, you can click here.

After the tasting, we went out to the back of the winery and there were several vendors set up for the festival. We stayed for a little while but then we were off to the next stop: Strong Tower Vineyards....


but not before this happened:
How Valentine's Day appropriate are these two! I loved them and after pulling the car over, I spent about 10 minutes taking pictures while urging them to "make their necks form a heart"....they did not comply.


Strong Tower Vineyards

Strong Tower Vineyards was created in Spring Hill when a couple, Terry and Janis, decided to grow blueberries to keep busy during retirement. After a soil sample revealed that the soil was better suited to grapes, they decided to create a vineyard and 10 years later they have a beautiful vineyard and 9 delicious wines. Fun Fact: They are the only vineyard in Florida growing the Norton Cynthiana grape. They host private parties and on 2 Fridays each month, they stay open until 10 pm and people can bring dinner and enjoy wine and dinner on their veranda. Ryan and I both agree that of the 4 wineries we have visited in Florida, this one has the best wine. (The blueberry wine is amazing!)
After tasting their wine selection, we both got a glass and enjoyed it while we walked around the vineyard and finally settled on their veranda. Ryan showing just how long the vines go back..1/4 mile!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day and we were the only people there...I wish we could have spent the entire day there, but we had more wine to taste! Next up: Pine Knoll Winery!!


Almost there!!


YAYYY we made it!! Awesommmeee....Yeah, woo, yeah!


WHAT!!?!?!?!


Pine Knoll Winery is no longer in existence....we had to learn the hard way, learn from our mistakes!! Also, Empire Winery and Distillery? Not for retail...it's a commercial distributor....but it's not like we drove all over the place before finding this out! Right? ...right? Oh yeah, WE DID....

So we were pretty discouraged at this point. Our Florida Wine Country tour had been going so great! We felt like we were on top of the world...and then it all came crashing down around us. We'll be the laughingstocks of the wine country community...oh no!

Lucky for us, we're not crazy and didn't actually think any of those things...but it still kinda sucked.

We decided to give up on our wine dream and just drive the remaining TWO HOURS (We didn't realize it was that far...whoops) to Cedar Key where we were staying the night...when I said "No! I refuse to let your dream of drinking wine around Florida be shattered Ryan! It's your 30th birthday!!"...So I did a little Google mapping and found:


Copp Winery

Copp Winery is in Crystal River and has a crazy amount of wines that they make on site. With names like "Scallopin Sangria" and PG-21 (Pinot Grigio)....I was crackin up the whole time...I also laugh at Laffy Taffy jokes though, so you may want to take that with a grain of salt. They allow you to sample 3 wines and then it's $2 to sample 3 more or you can buy a glass or bottle. They also offer cheese plates and a few appetizers which made us immediately regret our "OMG WE ARE STARVING" stop at Hardee's. (There is nothing good about Hardees, the only reason we stopped is because I confused it with Arby's which has mozzarella sticks...still fried and horrible for you, but a step up)


We give it 2 wineglasses up! I should stop trying to make jokes, they're all horrible.

Copp Winery is cool because they have custom labels that you can have made for a wedding or party and it's $5 for the design and $.50/wine bottle...pretty inexpensive and would make you look awesome. "Um, thanks for the roses...I guess...I got you a CUSTOM BOTTLE OF WINE..."

So there you have it folks! If you're looking for wine country but can't make it out to California...check out the wine in your state! For us, it was easiest to check out these wineries in Central to West Florida (Clermont, Land O'Lakes, Spring Hill and Crystal River) and then spend the night in Cedar Key. (Which is gorgeous and will get its own post) There is another winery just north of Cedar Key, but we ran out of daylight before we could make it there.

Thank you to the people that helped us recognize our dream of a Florida Wine Country by creating delightful wines!!