Montebello Park Packed for Second Wine Festival Weekend

Published September 26, 2011
By Jeff Bolichowski, Standard Staff
SOURCE: ST.CATHARINES STANDARD

It was a wild Saturday for wine buyers as crowds descended on the Niagara Wine Festival en masse.

As this year’s festival wrapped up, many winemakers were singing the praises of a bustling Saturday that saw bottles flying off the racks. Several sellers reported jam-packed wineries and vast crowds at festival booths pining for a sip of the good stuff that day, the day of the annual Grande Parade.

It was the busiest day Colin Pybus had seen in five wine festivals. The sales associate for Ridgepoint Wines said crowds jammed Montebello Park.

“It was packed,” he said.

“Obviously standing room only, but I couldn’t see the other end (of the crowd),” adding it was good exposure for his winery.

“We moved a lot of wine (Saturday) night,” he said.

The winery’s new line of Vintners Quality Alliance of Ontario white wine proved especially popular, he noted.

The crowds flocked to wineries, too.

Donna Everitt, on-site manager at Henry of Pelham Family Estate Winery, said their site was jammed with guests from open to close and many, she said, came from out of town.

“There were a lot of non-Niagarans for this week, interestingly enough,” she said. She said she noticed a lot of Americans, particularly visitors from Chicago, pulling up in their own vehicles.

She figured a few thousand people flooded Henry of Pelham. The winery came prepared, though, with a full staff and three separate tasting areas.

“It was like a well-oiled machine. We did really well.”

Everitt said buyers were particularly keen on sparkling wine and white wine.

This festival marked Malivoire Wine’s first time bringing a booth to Montebello Park, said retail associate Anna Lester. She said the move bore fruit, drawing attention to the 13-year-old winery.

Though she wasn’t at the park Saturday, she too praised it as a day to remember. She spent the day at the Beamsville winery and figured 600 people showed up.

“So far, we’ve found it to be a huge success,” Lester said of the festival.

“(Coming to the park was) a great decision. It’s a great way of getting out there, letting people notice us, because we’re not in the LCBO all that much.”

Usually, Grande Parade day does get people out and about, acknowledged Niagara Wine Festival executive director Kimberly Hundertmark, but this year’s parade day was special.

“The park was packed (Saturday), from beginning to end,” she said, with lines stretching down Lake St. until 9:30 p.m.

She said the rush left vendors — 31 in the park — having to restock Sunday.

“We topped them up on Friday and some of them ran out of wine,” she said. Even some food vendors, she said, had to pack up and close because stocks had simply been depleted.

The sheer volume of visitors overflowed to the wineries, too, she said, as visitors went exploring beyond the city limits.

“To have it that packed, in my years certainly those ones are few and far between.”

Pybus said the previous Sunday has been a sluggish sales day, but Saturday’s sales made up for it with interest.

“Compared to (Saturday), nothing’s going to compare to that,” he said.

Hundertmark said she’d worried Friday about bad weather dampening the festival, but it didn’t come to pass.

Instead, she wound up with a banner year.

“For us to top this next year, it’s going to be quite the planning process.”