Miami-Inspired Fun Wine to Launch This Spring

Awarded best packaging by Beverage Industry Magazine in 2018, a wine brand inspired by Miami’s culture and street art scene is set to launch locally this spring.

The brand is Fun Wine — a fruity, slightly effervescent, low-alcohol line that stresses attributes such as drinkability and affordability.

“Wine is a culture, and we developed the Fun Wine category to make it more accessible, friendly, and fun,” says the brand's founder and chief executive officer, Joe Peleg.

The slogan for Fun Wine — "Bringing the fun from Miami" — Peleg explains, is meant to convey that the product has the same lightheartedness and vibrancy of the city where it was created, echoed in the art on the brand's bottles. The slogan reinforces the concept that the brand is an unpretentious choice for consumers who do not consider themselves oenophiles.

"A lot of people try classic wines, don't like them, and go back to drinking beer, the most popular choice now amongst millennials," Peleg says. "But here you have a real wine that is simple, easy to drink, in natural flavors and a beautiful palette that a lot of people respond to."

Peleg says that at first, the company sold versions of table wines in cans, but the focus soon shifted. "Our main targets are people trying wine for the first time." In recent focus groups conducted by the brand in the Dominican Republic, he says, the flavored wines struck a chord particularly with women and men over 50 years old.

The artistic renderings on Fun Wine's bottles — a marriage of graffiti, landscape, and pop art — were created by Miamian Miguel Paredes, art director for the brand.

“Fun Wine is about reflecting a message of fun and enjoyment of life through creative experience," says Paredes, who owned an eponymous gallery in Wynwood for ten years. "Each of our wines offers a refreshing and uniquely paired flavoring, the type of product that is perfect for Miami weather."

Imported from Europe and distributed from Miami, Fun Wine launched nationally in 2018 and is sold in Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Ohio, and Vermont, as well as parts of Europe and Asia. According to Peleg, the wine hasn't made it to Miami stores yet because of strict local regulation laws.

The Fun Wine collection is offered in three varieties. The lightest option, Strawberry Rosé Moscato, is a boozy, sweet soda-like wine combining aromas and flavors of sugared strawberries, with a tangerine finish. Inspired by Miami's "endless summer," Peleg says, Coconut Chardonnay's blue bottle is covered in tropical flowers and bird motifs, and the wine has a sweet, tropical aroma mix of Coco López cream of coconut, pineapple cake, limoncello, and ripe papaya, with a creamy coconut yogurt and applesauce finish.

A flamenco dancer surrounded by red roses adorns the packaging for Fun Wine's third iteration, Red Sangria. With bright aromas of fresh ginger and sliced apples, the low-alcohol wine contains sweet blackberry jam, lime spritz, and an orange liqueur finish with woody tannins.

Containing 5.5 percent ABV, Fun Wine is sold in 750 ml bottles with a suggested retail price of $5.99 to $7.99 each. The brand also plans to launch 250 ml cans, which will sell for $2.29 apiece.