Florida is home to 16 vineyards, and 24 Florida Farm Certified wineries that produce wines from a variety of muscadine grapes and other Florida agricultural products such as blueberries and avocados.

At this time, there are no designated AVAs in Florida mostly due to geographic disbursement, but the Florida Farm Winery Program lends its designation to wines produced using at least 60% native agricultural products.

Native to the state are the powerhouse grapes, the Muscadine, which produces a sweeter-style wine. The muscadines are heat and pest-resistant, thick-skinned, and growing wild in backyards—the perfect set of circumstances for wine production.

Florida is home to the United States’ first documented winemaking. In 1564 French Huguenots made approximately “20 Hogsheads” of wine from Muscadine grapes growing wild in Fort Caroline just 50 miles from, “The Nation’s Oldest City,” St. Augustine, Florida.

Subsequent early European settlers tried to bring their traditional vitis vinifera winemaking to the New World, but failed miserably.  Many attempted planting temperamental European grapes, as well as hybrids, without success. In 1825 the Marquis de Lafayette received a land grant from Congress, and endeavored to make wine in the Tallahassee-adjacent Florida Territory. Unfortunately, he did not learn from his predecessors, and the winemaking foray came to an end by 1831. But, this vineyard remained, and is now home to Florida A & M University’s Viticultural Program.