Mayor retires as stomp champ
For the first time in several years, Mother Nature shone down on the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival.
The festival staged it’s first big weekend at Montebello Park with the annual Pied Piper parade that made a short loop around downtown St. Catharines, followed by awards for the best costume, and the Mayor’s Grape Stomp.
This year, 22 wineries and 11 culinary partners are serving crowds for the two-weekend festival. In addition to the wineries and food, a homegrown market was re-introduced to the festival for the first time in seven years.
“We haven’t had one since 2010, we brought that back,” said Kimberly Hundertmark, executive director of the festival.
“That was a new addition also part of the Ontario 150 funding, showcasing uniquely authentic Niagara products. Different artisans are featured here both weekends.”
Also new to the festival this year are five mini-documentaries.
“The most exciting part of last night was the launch of Strong, Proud and Free mini-documentaries,” said Hundertmark.
“We had five different mini-documentaries that were created capturing the real Canadian Niagara story of individuals in the community all with diverse stories beautiful stories, and they will be showcased in the park throughout the festival. Mitchell Riley worked with Chimpanzee and the Niagara Wine Festival to produce these emotive picturesque storytelling mini-docs that are inspiring and heart-warming.”
The documentaries will be shown on big screens in the park throughout the festival in between the band sets. They are also available online on the festival’s YouTube channel.
Adding to the fun this weekend was the 44th annual Mayor’s Grape Stomp, which included a couple of heats of children trying out their feet at stomping, members of the media and local first responders taking part. Participants also vied to raise the most amount of food for local food banks.
Mayor Walter Sendzik took home the stop prize for squashing the most amount of juice for the third year in a row.
“I did no training for this one,” quipped Sendzik. “I ate a lot. There’s no prep work. It’s like a 40-year-old hockey guy winning the Stanley Cup.”
But after three consecutive wins, he announced his retirement from competitive grape stomping.
“Yeah, I’m done. Next year it will have to be someone on council that steps up and wants to be the champ,” said Sendzik.
How did he plan to celebrate his final grape stomping win?
“More than just grape juice, I can tell you that,” Sendzik said with a laugh.
The park is open Friday 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., Saturday 11a.m. to 10:30 p.m. and Sunday noon to 8 p.m.
“To me, it seems like a richer festival this year,” said Hundertmark. “There’s so many people that wanted to engage in what we are doing. To me, I don’t know if it’s because it’s my last festival, but I feel this deep emotional connection to our community this year and I think everybody is feeling it.
“We have picture perfect weather, we haven’t had that in a lot of years ,which really just showcases the City of St. Catharines in the best possible way.”