From Field to Glass | The Story of Island Grove Wine Company

Long before there was a winery, there were blueberries. Hundreds of acres of them, growing in the heart of Florida since the 1980s under the care of Island Grove LLC, one of the largest organic blueberry farming operations in the Southeast. Fresh production was the business, supplying retailers like Walmart, Costco, and Target with fruit that met the exacting standards of the fresh market. It was serious farming, the kind that shaped the land and the people who worked it across generations.

Long before there was a winery, there were blueberries. Hundreds of acres of them, growing in the heart of Florida since the 1980s under the care of Island Grove LLC, one of the largest organic blueberry farming operations in the Southeast. Fresh production was the business, supplying retailers like Walmart, Costco, and Target with fruit that met the exacting standards of the fresh market. It was serious farming, the kind that shaped the land and the people who worked it across generations.

Culled Blueberries

But farming at that scale produces something else alongside the perfect fruit. The industry calls them culs, berries that don't quite look the part for fresh retail, not bad fruit, just fruit that doesn't make the cut visually. For years, like most operations, those culs represented a quiet loss built into the cost of doing business.

That changed when Chase, the winery's founding winemaker, walked into a conversation with one of the owners and asked a simple question. What if we made wine with it?

It was the kind of idea that sounds obvious only after someone says it out loud. The farm already had the fruit, the land, and the infrastructure. What it needed was someone willing to see the culs differently, not as a byproduct to manage but as a raw material worth something. The owners agreed. In 2009, Island Grove Wine Company was born.

Kinda Blueberry Wine

The first two wines were both 100% blueberry, one kinda dry and one sorta sweet, names that do exactly what they promise. Fruit wine carries assumptions, most of them wrong, and Island Grove knew it from the start. The response from people who actually tried it told the real story. That surprise, the moment someone expecting something syrupy takes a sip and reconsiders everything, became the foundation of how Island Grove talks about what they make. Just taste it. That is still the philosophy today.

In the years that followed, the winery found its footing and then found its people. Early branding leaned toward the look of a traditional winery, refined and formal. But the consumers who kept coming back were not necessarily wine country regulars. They were the craft brewery crowd, curious, unpretentious, interested in the story behind what was in the glass. Island Grove listened. The branding shifted to reflect who was actually showing up, and it fit.

The sustainability piece was never a marketing strategy. It was just the truth of how the operation worked. The blueberries grown on the farm's 300 acres are organic, and while the wine itself doesn't carry an official organic certification, it is made entirely from that fruit. Nothing from the harvest goes to waste. The culs that once disappeared quietly into the margins of the business now go into every bottle.

The wine cans are the latest expression of that same thinking. Available in two varieties, the Berry Sangria and the Blueberry Moscato, both come in 250mL four-packs built for the places Island Grove wine has always belonged. On the water, at a cookout, wherever a bottle doesn't quite make sense. The Berry Sangria brings tropical fruit alongside blueberry wine, best served over ice. The Blueberry Moscato blends California Muscat with the farm's own Sorta Sweet Blueberry wine, light and easy at 6% ABV. The format is new. The fruit is still the same.

Today Island Grove Wine Company is in Publix, Target, and other Florida retailers, while also expanding into restaurants and bars across the state. Someone from the team is at a market or event somewhere in Florida nearly every weekend, pouring for people who have never heard of blueberry wine and watching the look on their face change after the first sip. The tasting house sits on the farm itself, down a stretch of unpaved road that leads to something worth the drive, 300 acres of organic blueberries and a winery that started because one person looked at imperfect fruit and saw something better.

The farm came first. Everything else followed from that.