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Precious few people truly know their grapes like wine connoisseur Bob Roth. His show, Seller to Cellar, has been a staple on local cable channel WWCI 10 for a decade now. And what some of his devout fans may already know, the rest of us could stand to learn – especially if a candlelight dinner is part of our Valentine’s Day plans.

When Bonnie Spitzmiller was a student at the Knox School on Long Island in the late 1950s, she was a standout in the school’s equestrian program. As a 17-year-old she made her highest jump – at 5 feet 6 inches – on the sturdy back of a grey gelding named Snowman, owned by her instructor Harry deLeyer.

Very few people have heard of Bayou West, and that’s one of the things that made it so appealing to Jim and Laurie Carney. A unique part of Vero Beach history dating back to the early 1970s, it’s a two-story apartment complex behind the Quail Valley River Club at the end of Riomar Drive. After 40 years, it was beginning to show its age, but when the Carneys decided to return to the seaside town where they had begun their married life they zeroed right in on it.

It’s a good thing Leslie McGuirk refused to believe it when people kept telling her she didn’t have a creative bone in her body. Something inside told her that one day she would prove them wrong. She did, and in a big way.

Fourteen years ago Ed Fitzgerald was feeling on top of the world thanks to exercising regularly and watching what he ate. In his early 40’s, working in the brokerage business and living in New Jersey, he was the perfect picture of health. In fact he had just run into an old friend who said he had never seen him looking better.

Vero Beach is home to many talented residents, and never is it more evident than at this time of year when the results are announced for the Indian River Photo Club’s annual juried competition.

In a darkened studio, the photographer raises his camera. The model’s posture is erect. Dark eyes fix the camera with a practiced gaze. Click! Onlookers murmur their approval. An assistant approaches with one last touch: she carefully places a large dog biscuit across the wet, black nose of the model.

Valentine’s Day, the holiday that celebrates love with cards, flowers and chocolates, is best topped off with a romantic dinner.

A short stretch of ocean is all that physically separates privileged Florida from the beautiful if broken island-nation of Haiti. One of the most striking contrasts existed long before the January 2010 earthquake vanquished buildings and lives, and contributed measurably to the sense of vulnerability. An earthquake 500 times stronger in Chile the following month had a fraction of the death toll (795 versus 200,000 in Haiti) despite having roughly double the population (16 million versus 9 million).

Hundreds of thousands of college scholarship dollars have been awarded to promising young Indian River County musicians over the years, yet contributors rarely get a close-up look at the return on their investment. A search into the whereabouts of four past Vero Beach Choral Society (VBCS) scholarship recipients turned up an Ocoee middle school band director, a product developer for Paramount Pictures, a Florida State University doctoral student assisting with the collegiate drum line, and an up-and-coming Christian music artist happy to still call Vero Beach home.

Sometimes at an outdoor cocktail party when the pinks of early evening have turned to purple, the time that some Florida folks call “dark-thirty,” I suddenly feel it before I see it – a cloud of bats flying from a neighbor’s attic or the bat condominiums that our community maintains at its perimeters, swooping down above my head in a directionless flutter, their tiny faces like impish homunculi in a Bosch painting. The bats are small, not nearly as large as a fruit bat with its three-foot wing span. In fact, they’re more like three inches, similar to the bat described by James Joyce in Ulysses as “a little man in a cloak he is with tiny hands.”

Hearty soups are the ultimate comfort food for cooler temperatures. Serve them with a green salad, add a loaf of crusty bread or a basket of light biscuits or cornbread muffins, and the meal is complete.

If scary images from the movie Jaws come to mind, you’re not alone. Portrayed on film as dangerous predators that target human beings, nothing could be further from the truth – in reality, most sharks avoid human contact, preferring to feast on crustaceans, fish, seals and birds. The issue environmentalists have been concerned about is that the shark population has declined significantly over the last 20 years mainly due to severe overfishing. This is the result of demand in China and other Asian countries for shark-fin soup, a delicacy that has generated a lucrative, billion-dollar market.

When viewed from the road the new home on the river is understated in comparison to many of the others in the upscale community. It’s when you are invited inside that the understated becomes extraordinary, for what you see tells the tale of a husband and wife who knew what they wanted and how to get it.

Indian River citrus began in 1807, and rapidly became the most important agricultural product in our area. While our local fruit, especially grapefruit, is popular in many countries, our leading importer is Japan – Indian River grapefruit accounts for over 95 percent of all of the Florida fruit shipped there.

Heightened ecological awareness among people born since the post-World War II baby boom has helped turn ecotourism into a fast-growing niche market in Indian River County. Residents and tourists alike have an abundance of outdoorsy activities to choose from that combine fun with sensitivity to the area’s unique and fragile ecosystems. Natural habitats represented within the county range from mangrove swamps, where American alligators roam alongside roseate spoonbills, to pine flatwoods, where endangered Florida scrub jays sing and gopher tortoises burrow.

When Burt MacLeod spent his last days at Indian River Medical Center, his beloved wife Pat knew exactly where she belonged. And that was right there with him, day and night, for 23 days.

As well as being a leading Vero Beach Realtor, Charlotte Terry is president of the Laura (Riding) Jackson Foundation, which promotes literary programs in the community, and is past president of the Indian River Literary Society. As a staunch supporter of writers both published and non-published she is, of course, an avid reader.

Quail Valley Golf Club opened its doors 10 years ago this month. Built on the traditions of family values and community involvement, the club has stayed true to these themes, weathered the economic recession quite well, and looks toward a future of growth and continued success.