Food Network & Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival Volunteer Program

The Food Network & Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented by FOOD & WINE is a national, star-studded, four-day 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 Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management’s Wine Spectator Restaurant Management Laboratory and the Southern Wine & Spirits Beverage Management Center at FIU. To date, the Festival has raised more than $20 million for the School. Having just celebrated its 14th year, the Food Network & Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented by FOOD & WINE began as a one-day festival known as the Florida Extravaganza held at FIU’s Biscayne Bay Campus. In 2002, Lee Brian Schrager, then director of Special Events & Media Relations at Southern Wine & Spirits of America, took the reigns of the one-day festival and brought his vision for the Festival to life by relocating it to South Beach. The renamed South Beach Wine & Food Festival attracted close to 7,000 guests to a series of dinners, seminars, a Grand Tasting Village and live Auction in its first year. In 2014, the Festival and Southern Wine & Spirits celebrated the opening of the Wine Spectator Restaurant Management Laboratory and Mel Dick Wine Tower at FIU; the state-of-the-art educational facility built as a result of the funds raised from the Festival over the years. Looking forward, the 15th annual Festival will take place February 25 - 28, 2016 and will once again feature internationally renowned talent and leaders of the hospitality industry at uniquely crafted events showcasing world-class wine, spirits, food, and fun.