Lessons
Rick Garced is executive director of the U.S. Sommelier Association, which runs a wine school at the Johnson and Wales University campus in North Miami. Anyone can register for a course. In fact, says Garced, the student population at the wine school is currently about 40% hospitality professionals and 60% consumers, many of them executives who take the course for fun. An online wine school runs about seven weeks.
Cost: $150 to $275.Rick Garced knows how to wine and dine others, having served as maitre d' of such tony venues as New York City's former Windows on the World and Beverly Hills' Polo Lounge. As wine director for Apollo Ships Chandlery in Miami, he now decides what goes in the wine cellars of such major cruise lines as Oceana, Celebrity and Discovery.
"Our guests are predominantly American," says Garced. "As a result, we try to follow the trends of American consumers, but we also try to educate people on up-and-coming wines." One such up-and-comer: Garced just added his first Austrian wine to his wine list, Weingut Allram's Gruner Veltliner, imported by Miami-based Ibesc, which specializes in Austrian wines.
Garced's Favorites: Farniente Chardonnay;
1969 Domaine de la Romanee Conti.
Yo, Merlot!
Sean Murphy, vice president of Miami-based custom home builder Coastal Homes, says one of the more extravagant cellars Coastal has built was for actor Sylvester Stallone, whose Miami mansion -- since sold -- sports a temperature-controlled closet for fur coats for his guests to wear in the chilled cellar, which holds more than 20,000 bottles. Murphy says homeowners are plowing more money into wine cellars and integrating wine rooms into their homes as entertaining space, with seating, tasting tables, even secondary security systems.
Price-Conscious
The devaluation of the dollar has pushed prices of French and Italian wines up 50% within the past year, says Jeffrey Wolfe, owner of Wolfe's Wine Shoppe in Coral Gables. Spanish wines, he says, often provide a better value at under $20 a bottle.
Wolfe's pick: Castell del Remei, a red wine from the Costa del Segere region, at $12 a bottle.
Expertise By the Sip
Wine aficionados who may lack the expertise of a sommelier but are eager to learn can check out wine stores like Wolfe's Wine Shoppe (www.wolfeswines.com) in Coral Gables, which offers wine tastings and classes.
"Tasting is the only way to really understand wine," says Wolfe's Wine Shoppe owner Jeffrey Wolfe, who also holds informal seminars in his shop. "You have to read; you have to taste; but you don't have to spend $100 on a bottle of wine," he tells customers.
Wolfe takes his own advice, traveling each summer with his wife to a different wine region to learn more about the grapes and wines. He's recently visited Italy, San Francisco, Oregon and Spain. Says Wolfe: Spanish wines are really hot right now, especially in south Florida.
Tidbits
Florida ranks third in wine consumption, following No. 1 California and New York. ... The South Beach Wine and Food Festival kicks off the first week in March (www.sobewineandfoodfest.com) with a food celebrity lineup that includes many of the Food Network's favorite stars, such as Emeril Legasse and Bobby Flay. The festival's signature event, a grand tasting, is considered the "hottest ticket in town" at the OleoMed Grand Tasting Village, where guests can sip top-shelf wines and spirits or listen in on a "cocktail" clinic.
Makeshift Cellar
Georgeson Shareholder executive David Weeks was short on space in his West Palm Beach house, so he transformed a linen closet into a wine closet, with redwood wine storage units he purchased over the internet, a little paint and some wine wall hangings. The closet holds up to 275 bottles. Project cost: $400 to $500. Weeks stocks it with some of his current favorites: Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, such as Cloudy Bay ($19 a bottle), and California meritages (a blend of red wines), such as Flora Springs' Trilogy ($40 to $50 a bottle).