A metro area of 6m people, the “cruise capital of the world”, and the legendary nightlife of South Beach — it’s no surprise that Miami is one of the top wine markets in the US. What is surprising, however, is that its wine industry practitioners are only now getting up to speed.
“Miami is in the top three markets when we’re speaking with clients,” says Natasja Mallory of Gregory White PR, a firm focussed on premium wine, spirits and lifestyle marketing. “It’s New York, San Francisco and Miami.” But Miami’s food and beverage programmes have historically not lived up to such top billing. “When we’re organising events in Miami, the first thing we’re anxious about is getting that high level of service,” says Mallory. “We’ve worried about things like glassware, attention to detail, the temperature of the wine. It has sometimes been a struggle.”
But things have changed dramatically over the past decade, and it appears the quality and professionalism of the wine scene as a whole is on an upward trajectory.
Michael Bittel, proprietor of retail institution Sunset Corners Fine Wines & Spirits, attributes the wine scene’s maturation to the rise of the city’s culinary scene. “Many young restaurateurs and somms moved here from other markets that, at the time, to be frank, were much more sophisticated,” says Bittel. “They helped take Miami by the hand and make it a much more sophisticated market by creating a vehicle by which a host of small wholesalers could open and bring in more exotic wines because they had an outlet through which they could sell the wines. It was really restaurant-driven.”
Two standouts of this influence are in fact restaurant groups: John Kunkel’s 50 Eggs, and Michael Schwartz’s The Genuine Hospitality Group. The two groups feature small portfolios of restaurants that express craft culture through locally sourced products and refined beverage programmes.
Tastemakers
Eric Larkee, beverage director for The Genuine Hospitality Group, and Daniel Toral, wine director for 50 Eggs, are widely considered the leaders in Miami’s sommelier scene.
Larkee in particular has seen the maturation of Miami’s wine scene first-hand. Visiting from New York (where he was at Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner’s Wallsé) six-and-a-half years ago, he lunched at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, and recalls thinking, “If I could work at a place like this I could be happy here — not realizing it was the only place that was like that in Miami. Luckily, I think now it’s a better representation of what’s going on here.” What’s going on at Michael’s Genuine (and on the other lists in the group) is constant tinkering, perpetual refinement. “There’s something I really like about conciseness of lists,” says Larkee. “The longer I do this professionally the more simple I want things to be, from an operational perspective, from a guest comfort and decision-making perspective, and just visually, looking at a list that doesn’t have so much stuff crammed in.”
An affable mentor to some of Miami’s top sommeliers — a statement that belies his youth — Daniel Toral has been an unmistakable positive force. A self-confessed voracious reader of everything wine, he possesses the sensory skills as well, evidenced in his StarChefs’ national Somm Slam victory earlier this year. As wine director for 50 Eggs, his duties include managing the wine programmes of the group, including Miami’s award-winning Yardbird Table & Bar, and its second iteration at The Venetian in Las Vegas.
Fontainebleau Miami Beach has become a wine destination, with the wine programmes of Hakkasan, StripSteak by Michael Mina, Michael Mina 74 and Scarpetta being managed by some of Miami’s top sommeliers. “If you see us on the phone in the restaurant, we’re not talking to a friend,” says Brian Grandison, sommelier at Hakkasan. “We’re trying to pick wines off each other’s lists. And then there’s The Vault.”
“The Vault,” explains Jennifer Wagoner, sommelier at StripSteak and MM 74, “is our shared cellar. It’s space allocated to First Growths, aged Barolos, and more, that we can put on our lists, and then we can pull from that during service.” There’s a single gentlemen assigned to that task, however, as the value of wine in the vault is $1m.
Other notable names include Chris Zarcadoolas at Scarpetta, Todd Phillips at Mandarin Oriental, Alan Feldman at db Bistro, and Kirsta Grauberger at Market 17 in Fort Lauderdale. Virginia Philip MS of The Breakers Palm Beach, and Eric Hemer MW MS, director of wine education at Southern Wine and Spirits, are also influential from a wine education standpoint.
Destinations
Two wine-drinking destinations rise above the others: Uvaggio and Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink. Coral Gables’ Uvaggio is only a year-and-a-half old, but Heath Porter has created a wine list and atmosphere that has injected energy into the scene. “There’s just really not a lot of places like Uvaggio,” says Mallory. “You’ve got a very idiosyncratic, well-curated list of wines, and no apologies for it.”
Porter, who calls himself the “Head Wine-O”, doesn’t pull any punches. The advanced sommelier knew there was an uphill battle to be fought in Miami when he arrived not long ago. “God forbid if you actually poured something other than Malbec, Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio,” he says. “The fear of God would set in. Luckily I’m not really a God-fearing man, so I said to hell with it, let’s do it.”
Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink is Chef Michael Schwartz’s flagship restaurant in Miami’s Design District. Known for its refined wine list and great food, it is somewhat of an institution for those in the industry. Amanda Fraga, sommelier at Michael’s Genuine, credits their success to the freedom they have with the wine list. “We’re not forced by corporate or by general managers to make sure that we have a Pinot Grigio by the glass,” she says. “We’re able to pour Grüner Veltliner instead.”
Commendable wine lists can also be found at the restaurants at Fontainebleau, Bourbon Steak, Basil Park and Zuma, a programme previously overseen by Wagoner.
Retailers
The wine retail landscape looks much different today than it did just 15 years ago, when many small independent shops existed. Now, Total Wine & More operates a dozen stores on the Gold Coast, and Mega Discount Wine & Spirits operates eight. Wine can also be bought at grocery stores, such as Publix, which even has a wine club. Three names, however, stand out: Sunset Corners, Wolfe’s Wine Shoppe, and Wine Watch.
“We’re actually proud of the fact that sometimes we’re fighting against current trends,” says Bittel, who owns 61-year-old Sunset Corners with his cousin. “Part of the attraction of coming here is that you’re going to have the opportunity to experience something that you don’t know.” A third of Sunset’s business is actually conducted with people outside the state of Florida. “Our website is full of exotic things, small-production things,” says Bittel. “You’re not going to be able to find it wherever you are locally, no matter how good a wine store you shop in, simply because those kinds of wines aren’t in national distribution.”
Wolfe’s Wine Shoppe in Coral Gables offers a selection of small-production wines from true farmers. “His shop reminds me of our list,” says Fraga, sommelier at Michael’s Genuine. “Smaller producers, he buys what he likes. Maybe you’ll only find one bottle of Argentinian Malbec, but that’s just not what he drinks. If you go in looking for Malbec he’ll offer you a Cahors from France.”
Andrew Lampasone, owner of Fort Lauderdale’s Wine Watch, credits his “once-in-a-lifetime” (read, quite frequent) tastings and his YouTube channel, “What I Drank Yesterday”, for his recognition. “We do a lot of tastings,” says Lampasone. “Tonight it’s a Pauillac versus Margaux tasting, a comparative tasting between those two appellations going all the way back to the 1959 vintage, one of my favourite vintages of all time from Bordeaux.”
Distributors/wholesalers/importers
Miami is home base for Southern Wine & Spirits, the largest distributor in the US. Republic National (the second-largest distributor) and Premier Beverage Company (a member of the Charmer Sunbelt Group) also enjoy massive presence.
Some other well-regarded distributors and importers include Vinecraft (vinecraft.com), Vineyard Brands (vineyardbrands.com), United Cellars (unitedcellars.us), and Opici Family Distributing (opici.com).
Communicators
“Normally I would say the best way to get the pulse of what the market is doing is to talk to three or four wine writers,” says Lyn Farmer, a James Beard Award-winning wine and food writer. “Well, we don’t have three or four wine writers.”
Fred Tasker, the long-time wine columnist for the Miami Herald, now submits his columns from Michigan. “Fred is still tremendously influential,” says Mallory, “but he’s not going to come to your winemaker dinner down in Miami. But everybody wants to be published in Fred Tasker’s column — he’s still the gold standard for the Miami scene.”
Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (particularly popular with sommeliers) are relied upon, as is CellarTracker (for shoppers). Farmer manages an active blog (lynfarmer.com) and maintains an extensive network. Other notable new-media writers include Dinkinish O’Connor and Carol López-Bethel.
Other references include the wine columns of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, Tong Magazine (tongmagazine.com), Noble Rot (noblerot.co.uk), Punch (punchdrink.com), the Guild of Sommeliers (guildsomm.com), Dr Vino (drvino.com), Burghound (burghound.com), and even online shops and clubs with robust news feeds, such as Chambers Street Wines (chambersstwines.com) and Crush Wine & Spirits (crushwineco.com).
Events
The South Beach Wine and Food Festival is probably the most well-known of Miami’s countless events, but it, like many of Miami’s wine events, are linked to a single distributor (in this case, Southern Wine & Spirits). One notable exception is VeritageMiami (previously known as the Miami Wine & Food Festival). Directed by Lyn Farmer, the event raises $750,000 each year for the United Way of Miami-Dade.
Welcome to Miami
“As big a city as Miami is, with all the food and wine outlets there are,” says Porter, “the somm world, the wine world — the real wine world — is a super small community, and pretty tight.” This small group deserves a lot of credit, and their efforts are paying off with a wine scene that is building momentum. “The wine lists are getting more exciting, more creative, and there are more places, and people that are driving the scene,” says Toral. “But there’s still a lot of room to grow. There are a lot of opportunities for people to come and work here.” If history is any indication, it would be mutually beneficial.
