On the Road with the Grape Guy
Report from - Niagara Wine Festival ... September 20-21, 2008
06 Oct 2008- Details
- Category: On the Road with the Grape Guy
In the past I have a score the Niagara wine festival (and their other festivals: Icewine, New Vintage) passport / discovery program on a scale of one to ten, based primarily on the dollar value of what was being offered. Most wineries charge $10.00 without a passport and therefore it seemed logical to use that as a yard stick in the value ratings. With the passport last year you paid $30.00 for five experiences and thus the rating was graded at a break even point of $6.00 (the price you paid per experience if you obtained a passport – 30/5=6). This was changed to six experiences during the new vintage festival this past spring, thus changing the scoring and price paid per experience to $5.00 as the break even point ($30.00 divided by 6 experiences equals $5.00 per experience).
Before I get into who did what this year let me say that if you are not acquiring a passport and paying the $10+ at any more than one winery you really are wasting your hard earned cash - the passport is well worth the expense and offers good value if you are making a day or a weekend out of wine country during this event. Next, I must admit that I did not get to as many wineries as I have in the past, I visited about eight to ten wineries during my weekend excursion and found that each winery was delivering up the minimum requirement of $5.00 worth of value to their passport holders; therefore ranking wineries using my old scale seemed redundant, because all wineries would have been hovering at or above that $5.00 threshold. So this time I decided to rank on innovation and allure of what was being offered... (Read more)
