Spring Wine Festival Returns After Two Very Long Years By Gary Symons In a sign the pandemic is drawing to a close, the Spring Wine Festival is coming back after a grinding, two-year hiatus. Okanagan Wine Festivals marketing manager Jennalyn Christopher said it’s an exciting time for the team, after a difficult two year period when pandemic restrictions shut down four wine festivals in the Valley.
The Spring Wine Festival tickets are now on sale, and selling briskly as fans of Okanagan wines seem equally excited to see the event return. The festival itself will run from May 5 to May 15, with the signature Valley First Spring Wine Tasting taking place at Kelowna’s Rotary Arts Centre on May 7. Thirty-seven wineries from the region will be serving up more than 150 top quality wines in what has been traditionally one of the most popular and important events of the year. Attendees will also get to enjoy delicious appetizers, live music, and art exhibits. Christopher says the participation from area
Photo Credit: Wines of British Columbia
“Yeah, unbelievably long and tedious is right,” said Christopher. “And just a roller coaster. I mean, in March 2020, we postponed our Spring Festival until June 2020 thinking full well that we’d be able to do our events then. And now it’s been a full two years, so we are so excited to be getting back to the regular programming of the Okanagan Wine Festival Society.” wineries has been enthusiastic, as the industry tries to put the past two years firmly in the rear view mirror. “It’s been really positive,” she said. “We’ve got lots of signups to pour at our signature events and I think, for the most part, people are excited to just get in front of the consumer again, in a different way than they’ve been able to do for the past two years. “People are excited to get back to these events and connect with the consumer in person, not over a screen.” One of those wineries is Hester Creek, which is pouring at the Spring Wine Tasting and also putting on special events at the winery
itself for the duration of the festival. “We’re certainly glad to have it back, and nice to see all these things coming back to the Valley,” said Hester Creek’s director of hospitality Roger Gillespie. “We’re reintroducing some of our onsite programs just in time for the Spring Festival, and really looking forward to it.” While BC wineries adapted very well to the demands of the pandemic, Gillespie says the return of the in-person wine festival events reestablishes an important connection between the industry and consumers. “It’s an opportunity to highlight some of our events and programming and the things we
YO U R P R E M I U M PAC K AG I N G S U P P L I E R ENOLOGY | EQUIPMENT | FILTRATION CAPSULES | CLEANING East. 1-855-857-1511
www.aowilson.ca
| CLOSURES
West. 1-833-269-4576 Pre Spring 2022
27
