Month: July 2014

Schnebly Redland’s Winery– Skip It!

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If you remember a few weeks ago, I tried the Miami Brewery’s beers at Schnebly Redland’s Winery and Brewery.  The beers were not my favorites, so I thought I would go back and give the wines a try.  Well, the wines were even worse. 

The wines here are fruit based wines, which have the potential to be very good. I have had some great fruit wines at places like Keel and Curley near Orlando and Peaks of Otter in Virginia. However, fruit wines are tricky– you want to create something that tastes like wine but maintains some of the flavor of the fruit.  The wines here at Schnebly do not taste like wine and the comparison staff makes to typical wine varieties like Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay are laughable. 

The tasting fee here, just like the one for the beer, is a bit hefty. At $10 for tasting of 5 wines only, it is not a bargain.  

The first wine I tried was the AvoVino which is an avocado based wine. It has the nose of a Chardonnay but it is extremely buttery in taste. The butter taste also lingers so it is hard to clear your palate after this wine. To me, this wine was not even drinkable. While the unattentive staff was off doing something else, I had to pour it down the drain. 

The Carambola is a starfruit based wine.  The nose of this wine makes it almost undrinkable and is reminiscent of apple juice that has been sitting open for too long.  The wine had an initial sting to the tongue and was very sour upfront. The wine finishes sweet but it is kind of like a candy sweet–tasting a bit fake.  I will seriously miss Eden Winery and their starfruit wine as it was heads and tails above this one. This wine was compared to a Pinot Grigio but it is no where near!

The Sweet Avocado had a dry nose with an underlying flowery scent. This wine was extremely sweet like an ice wine. It had a underlying butter flavor but it was much more manageable than the AvoVino. 

The Cocovino and the White Category 2 Hurricane wines were about the only drinkable wines that we tried. The Cocovino has a nice nose of coconuts with an underlying light fragrance that reminded me of a soap store.  The wine starts off a bit sour but finishes with a light coconut flavor that reminded me of suntan lotion. 

The Guavino smells like guave on the nose with floral undertones.  The wine maintains the guava flavor and is moscato like.  However, unlike a moscato there is a hint of sour underlying the sweet.

The Mango didn’t have a real nose but there was a hint of floral undertones.  It was sweet but not overly sweet and along the lines of a dry reisling.

The Category 2 Hurricane White is very similar to the Cocovino. The wine supposedly also contains avocado. However, the buttery finish of the other avocado wines is not present.  The coconut prevails on both the nose and tongue.

The Category 2 Hurricane Red is made with avocado and guava. It tastes similar to the Guavino but is not as good.  

Would I go back to Schneblys? Nope. The beers are not good and the wines are overall horrible. I do have a few wines left on the list to try but I think I will skip them for now. I don’t think I could manage another tasting. 

 

Kelly’s Caribbean Bar, Grill, and Brewery– Another Try

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Since I was heading down to Key West, I thought I would give Kelly’s another try.  My first experience here was absolutely horrible– bad service and bad beer.  I thought my second time couldn’t be nearly as bad. Well the beer is still bad but the service was at least better.

This time I went for a late lunch. The place was totally empty and my waiter was brand new. He didn’t know much about the beers but at least he could do his job.  I hadn’t eaten here before as last time the service was so horrible, my friend and I walked out.  The food here is marginal. We started with a veggie flatbread appetizer which was small but tasty.  We also tried the mango gazpacho– it was different but not my favorite. I think I will stick with traditional gazpacho, as this reminded me of mango flavored salsa but with even more mango. I am sure it was good for me at least.

Now onto the beers…. Every beer here seemed to be lacking in carbonation. The mouth feel on each was like a semi-flat soda.  Think about what happens to a 2 liter of Coke after being in the fridge a couple of days– even though the cap is on, the Coke loses enough carbonation to be a bit on the flat side.

The Havana Red was very weak with only a slightly roasted nose.  The Key West Golden Ale was the best one here but also very weak with not much nose. I got a hint of yeast at the end of the taste on this one.  The Southern Clipper Wheat had a nose reminiscent of Bud Light with lemon Pledge and a sour lemon taste. I didn’t even feel this one was drinkable.

My suggestion– If you are going to Key West, skip Kelly’s. Go to the new World of Beer off Duvall Street instead.  From what I found, World of Beer and The Porch (a tiny craft beer establishment) were the only places in Key West to get good beer.