Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Icewine Village to transform Queen Street into a winter wonderland, from Jan. 19 to 20 and 26 to 27.

 

This year marks Icewine Village's 24th year, and will feature 25 wineries from the Niagara region. The event kicks off with the Sparkle and Ice Gala on Jan. 18, which will be hosted by social media influencers Sparkling Winos. The village will feature food from Signature Kitchens, where each dish will have a paired wine to complement the flavours of the food. The event will also feature a cocktail competition on Jan. 19, where contestants use ice wine in their drink mixture.

 

This year the village will stay up the entire week, where other years the setup differed each weekend. Although the tents are staying up the entire week, they will not be utilized during the week.

 

Andrew Niven is chair of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Wineries and is the chair of the Icewine Village as well. He said that they are expecting around 10 thousand visitors per weekend during the festival, and have seen people come from areas throughout Canada and the United States.

 

“This from literally the inception is something we celebrate throughout the month of January, not just with their tourists, but with our local culture and with her local community,” said Niven.

 

With a weekend fill with wine comes with plenty of empty bottles The Icewine Village donates their bottles to the local Air Cadets for their bottle drive.

 

“Every single bottle that is poured at icewine is collected and donated to the cadets for the bottle drive,” explained Niven.

 

At War for Animal Niagara (AWFAN) is planning to protest during the Ice Wine Festival. The organization goal of this campaign is for the horse carriage rides in Niagara to change over to electric carriages, explained Adam Stirr, co-founder of AWFAN.

 

“It really has nothing to do with the festival itself,” said Stirr. “Just as I’m sure the carriages will be out trying to profit off the festival, we’ll also be out increasing awareness about what we’re doing.”

 

The protests have been going on for over a year now, and the organization chose this event to open up the conversation about the cause with the public.

 

“We’re going to concentrate on the festival and providing an experience for our guests,” said Niven.

 

On Jan. 25 the final event for the festival is the White on Ice winner, which starts with an outdoor reception on Queen Street and will end off in the Courthouse ballroom.