Florida Is the Hot New Market for Premium Wine

Restaurants keep opening

Many newcomers are from New York, but they’ve also been arriving from the West Coast, and even the UK. Major Food Group famously opened a Miami outpost of Italian Carbone in January 2021. It now has seven outlets in the city. Gordon Ramsay has been on a more recent opening spree, launching Hell’s Kitchen in Downtown Miami in September 2023, and Lucky Cat on Miami Beach earlier this month. Local groups such as Groot Hospitality are also multiplying outlets, with much fanfare. When Casadonna, their joint venture with New York-based Tao Group, opened its doors in October, none other than David and Victoria Beckham were spotted on its doorstep. These openings have been a boon to sellers of high-end wine.

This is not to say that Florida was a wine desert beforehand. In August last year, I launched the first Wine Talks Miami event for our local wine trade. One speaker at this panel discussion on the past, present and future of wine in Miami was Allegra Angelo of Vinya Wine, a restaurant and retail concept with two outlets in the city. Angelo has been a key figure in the Miami wine world since long before the pandemic. She pointed to the likes of Jacqueline Pirolo of Macchialina restaurant, Amanda Fraga of Genuine Hospitality Group, and Zach Gossard who was formerly of Faena Miami Beach & Thomas Keller’s Surf Club, as pioneers in developing Florida’s wine scene. The implication that what’s happening is more of an evolution than a revolution was met with nods of agreement in the audience.

Demand for wine education

Demand for wine education has also been rising according to Alessandra Esteves, who co-founded Florida Wine Academy with her husband Guilherme de Macedo in 2016. The school offers courses from WSET and The Wine Scholar Guild, as well as other events and conferences such as Miami Champagne Week, and the VinoSummit wine conference. “We used to run classes for four people,” she said. “Now we have 20-24 in our WSET classes and we have to tell people to register for next month because we’re always sold out.”

This evolution has not gone unnoticed by wine producers. “Every supplier I have wants to come to Miami,” says Erin Jolley MW, Portfolio Manager for Maverick Beverage Company of Florida, an independent distributor of wine and spirits. “The buyers of Miami are starting to get a little bit jaded. They’re busy. We need people to go outside of Miami and to the rest of Florida.”
 

There’s more to Florida than Miami

Each of the separate markets within Florida has its own personality and buying preferences. “In Orlando, you need name brands and a fighting variety to do well. It needs to say Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. The panhandle is the same, except it also needs to be expensive,” says Jolley, the latter being a reference to the northwest of the state. “For Naples, it’s high-end Italian, and St Pete is interestingly becoming the natural wine hub of Florida.” But ultimately, there is opportunity across the state: “Every city in Florida has someone pushing the needle,” she says.

Producers hoping to enter or grow in the market are also faced with a distribution challenge. It’s a fact that the three main distributors, Southern Glazer’s, RNDC, and Breakthru Beverage, dominate wholesale. There are no official figures available, but some estimates place their combined market share at 80-90% of the beverage alcohol market in Florida. As a result, lists in chain or corporate-owned restaurants are often dominated by the big three, as are wine sections in grocery stores.

Jolley has advice for producers hoping to succeed in Florida. First, choose a handful of markets and focus on them. Then think about establishing your network from afar, for example through social media and by having a clear and updated website. “Connect with people before you come in, so that when you walk in the door they already know you and have the carpet halfway rolled out,” she says.
 

Growing media scene

Competition for media space is also tight. Jacqueline Coleman has been writing Miami’s only dedicated wine column, Vino, for The Biscayne Times since 2017. She is excited to see rising interest in Florida but points out that event schedules are becoming crowded. “This brings more opportunities for us as local wine writers, which often means our schedules can be quite full,” she says.

The wine trade is moving in

James Suckling has taken notice, with his two-day Great Wines of the World walkaround event in Miami Beach taking place in late February. He reported via email that more than 6,000 people have signed up. “I see Miami as the unofficial capital of Latin America and a vibrant premium wine market, different than New York which is strongly linked to Europe,” he said, explaining why he chose Florida for his flagship event. The list of exhibiting producers reads like a who’s who of the global fine wine world. And it’s fun.

Maison Mura’s Matthieu Yamoum also uses the word “fun” plenty of times in conversation. “It’s not just retail and events, it’s fun,” he says, explaining the store’s ethos. “We’re having fun, drinking good wine, helping people out. If you want to have fun, Miami is the city.” The well-heeled collectors and celebrities that flock to the store’s events and informal tastings seem to agree. But if you hear “fun” and think pink Prosecco, think again. In this corner of the city, fun revolves around First Growths, Burgundy, and vintage Champagne.

“People come to Florida to get on a boat and drink very expensive wine,” says Jolley, who is keen to dispel the myth that this market is all about rosé and cans. “Nobody’s drinking rosé unless it’s one of two to three big brands. And people don’t want alternative packaging like cans or bag-in-box. All of these things that sound exactly what Florida wants? It’s not really the case.”.

Yamoum sums it up: “Miami is this: It’s fun. And it’s attracted a lot of huge companies. And there are big salaries, and people who want to have fun. But it’s a different fun. It’s not $3k of Tequila on a club table, it’s $25k of White Burgundy and stone crabs on a yacht on a Sunday afternoon. This craze of fine wine and rare products is only getting stronger.”

By the end of his 2022 Financial Times article, journalist Joel Stein was exhausted: “If it turns out I do have to join the new Miami Movement, I’m going to need some of its old cocaine,” he wrote. Perhaps he could enjoy a nice glass of Raveneau instead.