The Caribbean isn’t exactly known for making wine. You could say that here in the Caribbean, traditional wine-making is a fool’s errand. But only if you are talking about making grape wine. The grape vine varieties are not suited for the continuously warm climates here in the subtropics. Muscadine grapes can make a go of it and we do use muscadines in a few of our wines.
But as you know, we think grapes are good for eating, but even then, they are far down the list. Down here, we don’t waste our time worshipping those knotty vines like the rest of the world.
We would rather something more exotic, fresh and new like guava, passion fruit, mango, lychee, soursop, red banana or sugar cane.
So our winery focuses on all the wonderful tropical fruits that grow in the islands. And we use that focus to ferment and age those fruits into amazing wines.
We are a small winery and rely on both locally grown, estate fruits but also bring in fruits from other islands to make our wines.
We ferment the fruit in our winery in downtown Charlotte Amalie. There we also age them in small oak barrels. Where we serve them in our tasting room.
So the next time you are in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, be sure to stop by and try a proper, island wine.