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A Brief History The South Beach Wine & Food Festival is a national, star-studded, three-day weekend destination event showcasing the talents of the world’s most renowned wine and spirits producers, chefs and culinary personalities. Hosted by Southern Wine & Spirits of Florida and Florida International University (FIU), the festival benefits the Teaching Restaurant and the Southern Wine & Spirits Beverage Management Center both located at FIU. Now in its fifth year, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival began as a one-day festival known as the Florida Extravaganza held at FIU’s Biscayne Bay Campus. For five years, the Florida Extravaganza showcased wines from national and international wineries paired with food from local restaurants and chefs working with students of FIU’s School of Hospitality Management. In 2002, Lee Brian Schrager, Director of Special Events and Media Relations of Southern Wine & Spirits of America, reinvented the Florida Extravaganza and produced the first annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival. Relocating to South Beach, the festival attracted close to 7,000 guests to a series of dinners, seminars and the Grand Tasting and Live Auction in its first year. The following year, the festival grew, attracting close to 10,000 people and garnered extensive national and media coverage. In 2004, with the addition of a number of events and revamping of the program, the festival doubled in size attracting over 20,000 guests to the three day weekend event. Celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2006, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival has become one of the largest and most well-known festivals of its kind, in the country. The festival continues to attract the best in the industry to a three-day wine, spirits and culinary celebration set against the Atlantic-framed, sandy beaches of America’s Riviera, South Beach. The School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Florida International University is recognized by industry leaders as one of the top-rated hospitality programs in the United States. Located on a tropical landscape overlooking Biscayne Bay in North Miami, the school boasts state-of-the-art facilities for food and beverage instruction, research, demonstration and testing as well as product and service development. Graduates hold leadership positions in hotel and restaurant management, travel and tourism, and related fields. Southern Wine & Spirits of Florida, a subsidiary of Southern Wine and Spirits of America, Inc., the nation's leading beverage distributor, has long supported the FIU School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Most spectacularly, the company's generosity has made possible the Southern Wine and Spirits Beverage Management Center. The 4,500 square-foot facility, adjacent to the School's main academic building, boasts advanced technology for beverage analysis and supports product evaluation, industry research and teaching.
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