Chautauqua Vineyards & Winery: Making Wine in the Sunshine State

By Bruce Collier November 16, 2006 Issue

If you travel north through DeFuniak Springs, you will have seen a pretty building near the interstate. There’s a small vineyard on the sloping grass lawn in front of the building, but that’s “just for show,” says George Cowie. Cowie is the winemaker at Chautauqua Vineyards & Winery, and he knows where the real grapes can be found.

The winery gets its grapes from a 40-acre farm located in the Glendale area, north of DeFuniak Springs. The two most often used grapes are Carlos, a white wine grape, and Noble, a red. Both are hybrids of the muscadine, a hardy native grape that is well adapted to the soil, insects, and climate of Florida. Cowie rattles off a list of other muscadine varieties, including the famous scuppernong. The advantage of starting the wine making process with native grapes eliminates many of the problems encountered with “foreign” fruit. “You don’t have to fight nature,” says Cowie.

Wine making entails science as much as art, and sweat as much as both. Cowie began learning his trade in Paris, Ark. where his family had a vineyard and winery, Cowie Wine Cellars. His father is still there and still making wine.

From the family vineyards, Cowie went on to college at University of Arkansas, earning a degree in food science, with an emphasis on, yes, grapes. He has been at Chautauqua for 16 years. The winery is not the only place of its kind in Florida. Cowie produces a brochure, listing a number of Florida wineries in Destin, Monticello, Vernon, Alva, Redland, Chiefland, Lake Placid, Panama City, and Saint Petersburg. Many are small family operations with both local and national followings. Paul and Kate Owens, residents of Brewton, Ala, own Chautauqua Vineyards & Winery.

The reception area of the winery has a counter and a small gift shop, offering wine gear such as cork screws, bags, and glasses. Also for sale are jars of grape seed oil, jellies, chutneys, sweet and savory sauces, honey, syrup, and assorted soaps and candles. A tasting room adjoins the gift shop, where tours conclude with tastings of the winery’s produce. Both tours and tastings are complimentary.

A small tour group has just shoved off into the winery, escorted by one of the staff. Cowie opens a different door; leading down into a spacious, chill room filled with a number of large tanks. The tanks are full of wine-in-progress, which is “cold stabilizing” prior to filtering and bottling. All this is performed at the winery. The icy cold stabilizing tanks are the largest objects in the room, but the most unusual has to be the press.

The press is German-built, labeled “EuroPress” on the side, and is currently empty. One can step under it and peer up into its insides. Crushed grapes are loaded in here — up to 35 tons, says Cowie, and pressed. The acquisition of this press “changed production a lot,” he says, adding that they are getting a better yield of better juice. At one end of the press is an impressive array of dials, switches, and gauges, systematically plotting every measurable aspect of the process. Despite this exactitude, Cowie emphasizes that “we can only shape and guide the grapes.” In other words, winemaking isn’t like turning out bricks.

There’s also a lab on the premises, for experimenting. The small room is crowded with bottles, test tubes and retorts, and gauges. It was here two recent additions to the Chautauqua wine line were tested and tasted — vanilla sherry and chocolate port. Cowie infused the winery’s sherry with a Madagascar vanilla pod and its port with cocoa beans, with encouraging results. Other felicitous combinations include a semi-dry mead-like wine called Wildflower, and Winter Berry, which incorporates cranberries and spices. Chautauqua also lists sparkling wines, non-alcoholic beverages and muscadine grape juice.

Just off the tank and filter room is the bottling and labeling area, which occupies a corner of the storage room. Employee Kathy Carroll is working methodically with a machine that fills about four bottles at a time, which she then vacuum corks, then arranges in a row next to the label machine. Cowie steps in to demonstrate the labeler, which individually applies glue to each colorful label, then smoothly slaps it onto the bottle. Corked and labeled bottles are packed in cases, which are stacked in this room. Chautauqua will custom-label wines for individuals and businesses, and special events such as weddings and anniversaries. Cowie says that the winery can bottle and box about 120 cases a day. The Chautauqua wines are all ready to drink right away, though Cowie says the port and sherry will develop in the bottle.

Cowie finds his vocation very rewarding. “Every season has its own challenges, taking what God and nature give you. It’s humbling when people buy wine, and then come back.”

“People ought to be proud to have the winery in this area.”

Chautauqua Vineyards & Winery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. The winery is at 364 Hugh Adams Road, DeFuniak Springs, and the telephone number is 850-892-5887.

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