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© St. Petersburg Times, published March 4, 2002
When the Florida Department of Citrus agreed to spend $470,000 to promote the trendy Ruby, a grapefruit-juice laden martini that Sex and the City cast members sipped, Ray Shook wondered how it justified the expense.
After all, each martini contains only 6 ounces of Ruby Red grapefruit juice.
The South Pasadena winery that Shook owns with his wife, Gladys, and son, Vince, makes a grapefruit wine that packs juice from 5 pounds of grapefruits in every bottle. The wine is said to go perfectly with seafood.
The citrus department can't promote Florida Orange Groves Inc. and Winery's grapefruit wine, Shook said, because it's a name brand. But the company is getting a boost from the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Marketing representatives at the department's Bureau of Seafood and Aquaculture have developed recipes to go with the Shooks' grapefruit wine. On the back of about 25,000 brochures the bureau will list information about the winery with pictures of the bottles. The brochures should be available this month. The state will split the cost, between $1,700 and $2,000, with the winery, said Tom Thomas, a seafood culinary specialist with the bureau.
Thomas said his office gets calls from grocery stores, specialty markets and wholesalers across the Southeast so "we don't have any trouble getting rid of any brochures."
Along with the grapefruit wine, the Shooks carry wines made with oranges, key limes, tangelos, tangerines, tomatoes, blueberries, blackberries, mangos and muscadine grapes.
The Shooks' business is rapidly expanding. In 2000, an affiliate winery opened in Key West. Last year, satellite operations opened at John's Pass Winery in Madeira Beach. Vince Shook said there are plans to expand the South Pasadena location by at least 3,000 square feet. There's also talk of affiliates in Tarpon Springs, Panama City and Orlando by next year.