Have You Tasted Wine Made from Flowers?

Wine can be made from various fruits like grapes, peaches, plums, apples, strawberries, and cherries. But did you know wine can also be made from flowers. While I heard about dandelion wine in my childhood but never tried it, you can now taste flower wine at the FlorVino Tasting Room at Hotel Gibbs in San Antonio.

While visiting a tasting room on US 290 a year or so ago, they were thinking about carrying FlorVino wine, and I did have a chance to taste some. Needless to say, I was impressed. When FlorVino opened its tasting room in downtown San Antonio, I knew I had to visit.

FlorVino was founded by Texas native Manny Ortiz and with decades of experience managing and developing upscale restaurants and clubs, he discovered flower wine during a visit to the Spirit Hills Flower Winery in Alberta, Canada. He had to bring the concept to Texas, so he created flower wines using local Texas flowers, leading to the creation of FlorVino.

The winery first had a tasting room in Galveston, but it settled in downtown San Antonio at the corner of Hotel Gibbs on Alamo Plaza on December 14, 2024. I learned they were now offering winery tours which intrigued me by both wondering how flower wine was made and if they indeed made wine at that location, so I booked a winery tour for a Saturday evening.

The FlorVino tasting room is within walking distance of the Alamo, so if you are visiting the National Historic Landmark, you now have a tasting room within spittin’ distance. I arrived at the tasting room which is located on the corner, so there are windows on both sides of the tasting room overlooking the plaza currently under construction. It will be really nice when the Alamo Plaza remodeling is complete. I told them I was there for the winery tour, and we proceeded to the basement of Hotel Gibbs. An event room was set up with chairs and a video screen at the front, so I knew there would be some kind of presentation during the tour.

Instead of you having to travel to visit a winery and take a production tour to see tanks and barrels, FlorVino has brought the winery to you at the tasting room with the multimedia presentation featuring animated characters. I wasn’t sure what to expect at first with the Disney-like presentation, but at the end, I really enjoyed the movie and learned a lot about making wine from flowers.

The characters in the movie were very entertaining and they started by giving an introduction to flower wine. The Texas production is being done in Comfort, but the location is not currently available for visiting. They hope to have onsite production tours in the future and if so, I will definitely be there to learn more. Other flower wines are currently made in Canada.

Flower wines use the flower nectar of the flowers which is harvested by bees and stored as honey. It is rehydrated and other flower parts are added before being fermented. It was interesting when the presentation said that flowers get the same amount of juice as grapes.

After a short time with the movie, it was time to taste the first wine. The presentation continued this way until we were able to sample six different flower wines with one-ounce pours. The first wine was poured and before we were allowed to taste it, they showed the audience how to properly drink wine. The presenter also provided suggested food pairings and uses during the presentation which made the tasting even more informative.

These were the wines tasted during the presentation:

• Jasmine. Dry white wine from Jasmine flowers. Very versatile wine.
• Glory. Dry red wine from hibiscus flowers. Aged in French and American oak barrels.
• Dande. Semi-dry white wine from dandelion flower petals from their own field in Canada. Aged in stainless steel. Makes a great margarita instead of using Triple Sec.
• Peaches. Semi-dry to semi-sweet white wine. These use Peach blossoms, not peaches, and the Peach blossoms come from Fredericksburg. There are no added sugars.
• Wild Rosy. Semi-sweet white wine but it looked like a light rosé. Made from wildflower nectar and wild rose flower petals. Did you know the rose was the U.S. National Flower? This came from Spirit Hills Flower Winery.
• Yeehaa! Red Sangria is also called the Cowboy’s Sangria. Made from wildflower nectar, black currants, apples, parsley, and a touch of cinnamon.

Here are some interesting tidbits I picked up during the tasting.

• Beehives are as troublesome as grapes where fencing is needed to be built to keep animals like raccoons away.
• Flower nectar is 70-80% water.
• Dandelions are harvested one petal at a time! I had to dig up many dandelions while growing up north and it was much easier to do it with the entire plant. Harvesters are paid by how many petals they harvest, so they get really efficient at it.
• After opening and putting a flower wine in the refrigerator, it will last 30 days because it doesn’t contain the other ingredients that common wines have.
• It takes 4-6 weeks of production time which is much shorter than regular grape wine.
• Some flower wines are aged in oak, but most are in stainless steel.
• Flower wines do not elicit headaches and hangovers.
• Flower wines in the United States are not allowed to use vintages.

Everyone in the audience enjoyed the presentation and the wines being tasted. As I mentioned before, I really enjoyed the presentation and the wines. The only issue I had with the movie was that sometimes the different accents the animated characters were using made it difficult to understand certain words.

At the end of the presentation, we all learned we were on the first real winery tour for FlorVino. They took a photo of all of us at the end, and even though I haven’t seen it posted yet, I do know Texas Wine Lover was on the first tour!

105 N Alamo St, Ste 1, San Antonio, TX 78205