Wassailing into winter

Sally Peck among the vines at Sugarbush Winery on Wilson Road.

County tradition is vital part of a growing tourism economy

In vineyards across the County, growing season is over. The grapes have been collected. The process has begun to make them into wine. The vine leaves have become dry and yellow and have begun to fall. in the vineyards, the work to tuck the vines into their winter beds has begun. And the vintners must now sing them to sleep.

Wassail, the last of the County’s harvest events, borrows its name from the art of wassailing, or singing to fall orchards. The superstition—out of which the yuletide caroling tradition was born—was that if people sang to the trees after harvest, they would bear a good crop the following year.

Since wassailers were given mulled cider in exchange for singing, it’s no stretch that the old English tradition has been carried across the Atlantic and reworked in Prince Edward County to be sung over grape vines.

The idea came from Richard Johnston of By Chadsey’s Cairns. It was welcomed by the Prince Edward County Winegrowers Association (PECWA). The group wanted to find a way to extend the season for tourism and commerce generated by the wineries.

“We were looking for an event for the shoulder seasons, because that’s obviously when we like to see people. Because we’re already busy in the summer,” says Sally Peck, owner of Sugarbush Vineyards and organizer of this year’s Wassail events.

Now in its seventh year, the event has become a tradition for local musicians. Wine tastings are free for anyone who will sing to the vines. So every year, a group of musicians book a bus, tow along their instruments and sing at participating vineyards.

Wassail extends the tourism season in the County. It also highlights—and is highlighted by—other events of the season. Countylicious, the Festival of Trees, the Slow and Sinful gala and the County’s many Christmas parades contribute to the numbers wineries may see during Wassail weekends.

“Since the beginning, we see lots more traffic, but it’s also just the whole industry is growing. It’s hard to put a number on it, because the first year we opened it was very slow, even for Wassail. But now we see more and more people,” says Peck. “We try to keep track and count how many people, but that’s not a good indication of how many more people have come to the County.”

Along with wine tastings, wineries are offering seasonal treats to revellers, making Wassail different from a regular wine tour of the County. There will also be musical events and Christmas markets to get visitors in a holiday mood. Some wineries have partnered with other businesses to create a richer experience: Keint-He has partnered with Agrarian to prepare a dinner in that winery; John Nyman will be preparing his maple sausages to pair with wines at Sugarbush Vineyards.

These partnerships are organized individually. While there is likely some positive effect on nearby businesses, there is no official partnership between PECWA and other business organizations during Wassail.

“We’ve tried in the past to lump in other businesses as well, but it’s logistics,” says Peck. “We encourage other people to do things during Wassail as well, and we’ve tried to get together with the BIAs [business improvement areas] to try and sort something out, but we never really have been able to find a way to tie it all in.”

Still, Neil Carbone, director of the County’s Community Development Corporation says every event that extends the tourist season is valuable to its economic development.

“Events and activities that help to sustain our tourism activity into the shoulder seasons are extremely important to our economy and to help expand our appeal as more than just a single-season tourism destination,” Carbone says. “Wassail is an important event not only for its season-extending effect, but also because it highlights and celebrates the tradition of the harvest and the burying of the vines—authentic County experiences that we want to promote and leverage.”

For the vineyards at least, Wassail is a way to celebrate the end to a long and stressful year. The intense cold of last winter left many worried their vines had been irreparably damaged. The cool, rainy flowering season meant a possibility there would be little fruiting. Then the late, warm harvest brought bumper crops, but also meant scrambling to find room for all the grapes before frost set in. By the end of Wassail, the vines will be buried, the grapes fermenting, and wineries will be able to take a deep breath. And wait for spring.