Colio Estate Winery is hosting its 18th Festival of Ice Saturday and Sunday while some other EPIC wineries are holding "meet the maker" events with tastings and tours.
Allison Christ is the winemaker for Colio in Harrow. She says the festival is one of the most popular events of the year.
"It's a lot of fun to get people out in the winter when everything's cold and there's not a whole lot else going on," she says. "It's great to be able to come out for the weekend and visit all the wineries in EPIC."
The bulk of the action will be happening on Saturday, but Christ says there's plenty of fun all weekend.
"We have an ice-luge that we pour our ice-wine through, we have ice carvers for sculptures, we have a chocolate fountain, there's a fire pit outside to roast marshmallows, we have a DJ, there's going to be a food-truck here," says Christ. "Lots of events to see on the Saturday afternoon and then Sunday afternoon we are viewing the ice-sculptures and have some more in-store specials."
She says Colio and several other wineries will be holding tours, and separate attractions throughout the weekend.
"All of those events are at our winery here at Colio and then the other EPIC wineries throughout Lake Erie-North Shore also have their own events as well," she says. "You can kind of tour around the whole area and see everybody's place. Each of the tours is going to have an entire tour of the facility so you can see how our operation works with a focus on ice-wine since that's what this whole festival is about."
Admission for the Colio Festival of Ice is just a simple donation of a canned good or cash for the local food bank.
Proceeds benefit St. Vincent de Paul Society Food Bank for Harrow and Colchester.
Festivities begin at 12pm Saturday.
— with files from AM800's Patty Handysides.