Niagara Grape and Wine Festival aims to draw more out-of-towners

New this year for the main festival will be Sunday brunch in Montebello Park to attract foodies

The Niagara Grape and Wine Festival is continuing to evolve to stay relevant and bring in more tourism dollars, St. Catharines city council heard this month.

Dorian Anderson, executive director of the festival, shared plans with St. Catharines city councillors on how the festival is adding features to grow the 72-year-old event and attract new visitors.

“There’s a real theme around what we’re doing this year and it’s all about bringing outside money into the city,” Anderson said, adding the festival is not forgetting about the local community, which she emphasized is very important to it.

“We’re looking for the tourism dollars to really amplify our budgets and let us get to the next phase of what we’re hoping to do.”

New this year for the main fall festival in September will be a Sunday brunch in Montebello Park to attract foodies, who Anderson said spend three times more than casual day trip consumers.

There’s also a new Food and Wine Marquee with culinary classes and demonstrations to spotlight the best food and drink in Niagara, as well as off-site events to highlight winery and culinary partners outside the park and other new elements.

Last year the festival added an In Good Spirits cocktail lounge that sold grape-based spirits that ended up having some of the top-selling drinks in the park.

That will be held again this year along with the VIP Cabana program launched last year as part of a

“premiumization program” focused on getting high-end wine and culinary consumers interested in the festival. Visitors can rent a cabana for two-hour blocks with wine butler service.

Anderson said the festival, which holds events throughout the year across the region, is a significant economic driver for the community with more than $5 million in tourism spending in Niagara just for the fall festival alone. She said 95,000 visitors come to St. Catharines’ downtown core each September directly related to the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival.

With a “Niagara first” approach, she said the festival had more than 80 St. Catharines-based businesses, associations and artists employed during last year’s festival, totalling more than $500,000 in billing.

“To put it in perspective, a third of our operating budget is spent in St. Catharines on businesses, associations and artists,” she told council during its last meeting on May 15.

City councillors voted to authorize a fee-for-service agreement with the festival for 2023 as part of an annual support program.

The city has been implementing fee-for-service agreements with the festival since 1998. The latest five-year agreement approved by council in August 2019 detailed annual disbursements of cash and inkind city services each year, subject to “satisfactory” annual reporting by the festival to council.

For 2023, that includes $70,000 in cash and $45,300 in in-kind city services, such as the rental of Montebello Park and city services required to get the park ready and shut down streets for the Grande Parade.

It’s the final year of the five-year agreement and the festival board of directors have plans to negotiate a new fee-for-service agreement with the council later this year.

Council heard before that happens, the festival is hiring a consultant to undertake a five-year strategic plan to look at the mandate of the festival and evolution of the wine and tourism industry.

“The support from the city, specifically through COVID and then coming out of COVID while we’ve been recovering has been phenomenal and we would not be in the good position we’re in now had it not been for the support of all of you,” Anderson told council.

The Niagara Grape and Wine Festival will be at Montebello Park the last two weekends in September with more than 100 Niagara VQA wines, food, live entertainment and a family fun zone. Entrance is free.