Cheers! A winemakers dream — in Florida

updated 12:30 p.m. ET July 2, 2007

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - For Peter and Denisse Schnebly, sweet dreams are made of this: wine, from carambola, lychee and mangoes that won’t grow in cooler climates.

Instead of using grapes, they’re embracing Florida’s agricultural strengths. In the process, they’re hoping to lure visitors away from the world-class beaches, international fashion designers and hot Latin sounds of South Beach to experience other aspects of the region’s natural beauty.

“Does it really matter what you made the wine from?” Peter said. “Isn’t it more important that you made a good wine?”

The Schneblys started selling their wine in 2005 to cut the waste from their tropical fruit orchards. The couple farms about 100 acres in the Redland area west of Homestead and got the idea to make wine a few years earlier from one of Peter’s friends who owned a winery in upstate New York.

Twenty to 40 percent of a tropical fruit crop can’t be sold because it’s either blemished or too ripe. Schnebly Redland’s Winery was started with fruit the couple would have thrown away, but they eventually expanded to buying fruit from neighboring farms.

“We had growers that were dumping this stuff away, and now we’re making wine out of that,” Denisse said. “And we’re paying them for it.”

The Schneblys started their produce company, Fresh King Inc., about 13 years ago, shortly after they were married. They had met in South Florida when Denisse, who is from Colombia, was working as a sales representative for a produce company and Peter, a New York native, was working as a buyer for a grocery chain. With years of experience between them, they started their own business.

The wine is made in a relatively small section of their 24,000-square-foot packing facility. The stainless steel fermenting tanks can hold 20,000 gallons. But because the couple uses a variety of fruits with different growing seasons, the winery can produce more than 100,000 gallons of wine annually.

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Peter said he expects the winery to do about $1.2 million in sales this year.

The Schneblys weren’t the first ones to start using tropical fruit for wine. Florida Orange Groves Inc. and Winery in St. Petersburg has been at it for more than a decade, making wine from mango, guava and passion fruit, which are also on the Schneblys’ menu.

Schnebly wine has already met with success compared with other non-grape wines, pulling in several awards. But the couple hopes to break down the stigma that non-grape wines are somehow inferior.

“We’re not making any cheap wine,” Denisse said. “We’re making serious table wines that can be paired with food. And believe me, they will make food taste better.”

Allen Susser, head chef and proprietor of Chef Allen’s in Miami, believes the Schneblys are making more than a novelty wine. Besides selling their mango and passion fruit wines at his restaurant, which serves New World cuisine, Susser also likes to cook with them.

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