Lakeridge Winery & Vineyards - Clermont, FL Pt. 4

We close out our conversation with Barry Hus of Lakeridge Winery and Vineyards, Florida's largest winery. I can imagine that staffing can be a bit of a challenge.

I went to New York and recruited a vineyard manager that was highly experienced, and he's done wonders for our vineyards. I went to Sarasota. I recruited this top mechanic that had been in the industry for 45 years can fix any kind of bottling line equipment or anything that you have. And he's been the same thing. He's just he's helped us fix so much and saved us so much money with his expertise. So it's that kind of thing, that kind of recruitment that lends itself to providing a successful business, no matter what you're doing, you know, people make the difference. Having a winery the size of Lakeridge Winery & Vineyards, you've got a vast selection of wines. What are some that stand out that are your biggest sellers?

Our most popular wines are our southern red and southern white. We also cross-label those as vintners, red, and vintners white at our other location. They're the exact same wines. That's 60 percent of our business. Those two are the main Muscadine wines that we produce one white, one red. After that, we make a bold blush. It's called Sunblush, and it's also Muscadine. And then we make a Chablis. We make a Chablis out of our white grapes. That's the driest of the Muscadine wines. They're both good sellers, the Chablis is great for cooking the sunblush. We call it the Goldilocks wine. It's a little red. It's a little wide, it's a little sweet, it's a little dry. You know, it's you don't know what to take to a party that's a great wine to take with you. And then becoming more and more popular are the specialty wines, and we're just getting to where we're having to ramp up our production of our sparkling. We do our own sparkling wine. We do two of them a white and pink. And we do. We still do them in the old champagne method. So we're doing the double fermentation on those. We make a port that's 100 percent Musk, nine, with a wonderful port. So those specialty wines are great. We also produce a Sherry. The Sherry is about 25 percent Muscadine. It doesn't lend itself to a great sherry. The white grape doesn't. So we're bringing that in and then blending it in with about 25 percent of the Muscadine. And then it produces a great, great Sherry after that. And then we have some kind of blends we do at what we call a proprietor's reserve. It's kind of a dessert-style wine. Again, it's a sweet wine. It's got a higher alcohol level than our standard table wine does. But it's not quite a port. It's gone over very well. Again, it's one of those sweet wines served chilled. Those are the main ones. Those are what we produce. Our main focus is on our Muscadine wines and our southern reds, southern wine by far our top sellers.

It's been a pleasure talking with you and learning so much about Florida wine. If our podcast listeners are in the area or planning a Florida trip, what's the best place to go to get all the information we need? The best place to go to start is at our website, which is Lakeridgewinery.com And from there, you can get our hours and information about the weekends at the winery. Who's what bands are playing, what foods are being served, all that kind of stuff. If you want to call in, you can certainly do that. We have an 800 number. It's 800.768.9463. Be happy to answer any of the questions that you might have. Thank you for listening. I'm Forrest Kelly. This episode of The Best Five Minute Wine Podcast was produced by IHYSM. If you like the show, please tell your friends and pets and subscribe. Until next time pour the wine and ponder your next adventure.

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