PANAMA CITY BEACH — SeaBreeze Winery’s latest accolades are almost as sweet as the muscadine wines that won them.
The Panama City Beach winery emerged a victor at the 26th annual Florida State Fair International Wine and Grape Juice Competition last month, receiving top honors for three white wine varieties.
The Horizon White, the winery’s driest white wine, won gold, while the sweeter varieties, Palmetto White and Island White, brought home silver and bronze, respectively.
While the drier wine brought home the bigger prize, winery owner and Bay County local Lynn Webb said it’s sweetness that sells at SeaBreeze.
“As I tell everybody, in the South we grew up with Coca-Cola and sweet tea in our baby bottles,” Webb said. “The Island White is our number one selling white wine, and the Island Red, our sweetest red wine, is our number one selling wine out of everything; it has been since we opened the doors.”
Muscadine grapes are native to the Southern U.S. and SeaBreeze’s grapes are harvested at a 100-acre vineyard in Bruce; it’s the largest vineyard in the area. After the grapes are harvested, they are brought to the SeaBreeze facilities in Panama City Beach, where they are processed and bottled.
“The grapes are harvested up there and then everything comes here,” Webb said. “They come in from 1-ton bins and then everything happens here — the crush, press, fermentation, bottling, everything.”
Overall, SeaBreeze produces 12 types of wine: four whites, three reds, two fruit wines and one each of blush, port and sherry.
“There are a lot of sweet wine drinkers out there,” Webb said. “Especially with a lot of new wine drinkers that are trying to learn to like wine … they’re going to have to start somewhere.”
The most recent awards are not the first for SeaBreeze. The winery’s Island White and Island Red each won best in class at the 2012 Indy International Wine Competition, and the Island Red also won in 2011.
“That’s a really big deal to go up against all of the other muscadine wineries and win in our category,” Webb said.
But awards aren’t the biggest reward at the end of the day.
“I think the biggest reward of all of it is (customers) coming back,” said Webb, who added she can always count on loyal customers to spread the word. “Whether it’s local people or people who have places at the beach, if they have a guest come in, they always bring them to the winery.”