Located at 726 County
Road 50 East, Harrow, ON will open soon. This winery is owned by Sam
Paglione, who also
owns Paglione Sam Masonry in Kingsville.
Oxley Estate Winery

Oxley Estate Winery, located on the south side of County
Rd 50 in Harrow recently planted 5 acres of vines
and plans to be open
in 2012 or 2013.
Shores of Erie International Wine Festival
While some
may disagree with me that the 6th annual Shores of Erie International
Wine festival was a success let’s
have a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The region’s premier wine event attracted approximately 20,000 visitors over the four days. Wine appreciation
seminars were an important part of the festival. Tony Aspler, Canada’s leading wine expert and wine writer hosted
a well attended seminar where he discussed sensory evaluations of wines and cellaring of wines.
He also had on hand a limited supply of his recently published and autographed, “Cellar Book” for
purchase. I say limited supply because a few people who wanted to buy a signed
copy left disappointed when Tony Aspler ran out of books.
Later that evening all of the wineries at the festival were invited to present one or two of their wines to
Tony Aspler for a tasting review. A day or so after the event he posted on Facebook, “Best wine
I had at the Shores of Erie Wine Festival” - Viewpointe Barrel Fermented Chardonnay 2006”, was his favourite
but he was also impressed by the Syrahs being made in Lake Erie North Shore.”
The festival handed out plastic “govino” glasses this year. Apparently the wine glasses used in
the past would easily break causing a cleanup nightmare for organizers. While they may not be great for
those wanting to drink chilled white wine, they seemed to be a good overall solution.
The only real grumble I heard about over the weekend was about the new
rules which festival organizers placed on the selling of wine at the
event. They limited the number of admission tickets available for each
day of the event. Saturday has always been the most popular day to attend
and this year was no exception. Saturday only tickets sold out about
a month before the event. I did a search on Kijiji a day or so before
the event and noticed quite a few people where trying to hawk tickets
for double the price. I wonder how many people bought a bunch of tickets
on speculation with the plan on making a quick buck.
The organizers also limited bottle sales, stopping them two hours before
the evening’s last call. Good or bad, the organizers really had no choice.
Originally the AGCO was not even going to allow bottle sales, and this was a fair compromise.
Anyone living in the area long enough will recall the old “Grape Fest”, which was held at the Caboto and Teutonia Clubs.
The “Grape Fest” would have been better labelled the “Drunk Fest” as young twenty something’s
gulped wine as though it was a pitcher of beer, not seeing or feeling what
was about to hit them. Unfortunately, Saturday evenings at the Shores
of Erie International Wine Festival was starting to look like the old
grape festival so the AGCO stepped in to take control.
Yes, limiting ticket sales and bottle sales is going to hurt the bottom
line for wineries. Wineries in the past have seen this weekend as a good
opportunity to make money. Perhaps the time has come to change the focus
of the event from wine consumption to wine promotion. Perhaps festival
organizers will have to adjust booth cost for wineries too. My suggestion
to organizers and wineries is to have more wine seminars (it is a wine
festival after all) and wineries, instead of focusing on selling wine at
this event, need to offer some sort of promotion to get people to visit
their winery to buy wine there.