Terroir on the Move

PECWA reimagines legacy wine festival

One way to ensure that you are moving forward is to always be evaluating your current situation. Such is the case with the constant evolution of the Prince Edward County Winegrower’s Association (PECWA) and its calendar of events. Terroir was once the marquee event in PECWA’s calendar. It brought together all the winemakers, artisans and farmers in the County for a day to celebrate the opening of another season. A place where everyone who survived the winter by varying degrees could get into the rhythm of being busy again, as well as rub elbows with friends in the business and do a little schmoozing. But the scope of what the County has to offer has expanded dramatically over the past few years, and to properly cover all aspects of this PECWA made the call to separate the vendor and artisan aspect of Terroir to its own event Called Taste: Community Grown, which is now held at the end of every season at the Loch Sloy airbase. PECWA rounds out its calendar with two “on the move” style events where the goal is the get the public out into the County to explore the various wineries in a multi-venue festival. Both Wassail! and Vintner Fest are geared to drawing business during slower times of the year and revolve around people getting out for unique experience at each winery. They can get there on buses organized by PECWA or by travelling on their own with a map. The result being seen so far with these multi-venue festivals is that the customer leaves at the end of day with a much deeper experience from each winery than he or she would have received from a booth at a traditional one venue setting.

Kathleen Shattock and Laura Ledger stand ready to welcome Terroir on the Move participants at Redtail Winery.

For these reasons, and a couple more that come from constant re-evaluation, PECWA decided to change the format of Terroir this year. The legacy festival has left the confines of its four walls and followed in the footsteps of Wassail! and Vintner Fest by evolving into Terroir On The Move, where a passport gets you six unique wine experiences at participating wineries across the County over a two-day period. For PECWA president Duarte DaSilva, there were a couple of main factors that brought about this decision and one had to do with the name itself.

“By its very nature it’s called Terroir, and yet we are sending people into an event space rather than getting them to experience what it’s like at each individual winery north to south, east to west. We thought if we were calling it Terroir, we should be focused on getting people out to the vineyards so they can actually feel the terroir under their feet,” says DaSilva

Practicality is also a big factor for PECWA in making the switch in format. At this time of year, wineries are struggling to staff up and it’s difficult to have staff at two locations. PECWA had a high turnout for wineries this year, 20 in total, and DaSilva feels that is because the winemakers could participate and still be present at their wineries. Previously wineries were always put in the difficult position of either not being able to participate or participating and being short-staffed at the home base. With the multi-venue format, customers receive unique experiences at the winery that they wouldn’t get if they were walking in off the street. When all the wineries come to one location, what they can bring is very limiting. Three to four items maximum. When everyone can stay at home, customers can try anything the winery has to offer, as well as limited releases, barrel tastings and vineyard tours. Not to mention who they get to taste with.

“If you went to Stanners this weekend for the barrel- tasting, you were tasting with Colin Stanner, if you went to The Grange, you were either tasting with Caroline or Maggie, so those opportunities are too good to pass up. By making it a passport option, we are also getting feedback that people were going to wineries that they hadn’t visited yet to taste new wines and that’s exactly what we wanted,” says DaSilva.

DaSilva adds that it was also important for PECWA members to have the customers come to them. The wineries would then be able to offer their complete breadth of wines, which would hopefully lead to increased sales over an already busy long weekend.

By switching the format of a legacy festival like Terroir, PECWA is showing the County that it is listening to the concerns of the past, and willing to try new things for the future. All with the goal of ensuring that its cultural calendar continues to reflect how amazing this region is for wine and wine culture. With Terroir on the Move now in history books, PECWA now hunkers down for the busy season and comes back with Taste: Community Grown on Saturday, September 21.