Grape Growers Luncheon

This past Wednesday, we went to the Grape Growers of Ontario luncheon. It was in St. Catharine's and the guest speaker was Dan Aykroyd who has recently become very involved with some Ontario wineries.

These pictures aren't the best because the lighting was poor and I didn't have a super-duper flash. He gave a good speach about Canada and the wine industry.

As you can see though, we had pretty good seats. And we had great table mates. We were seated with a bunch from Niagara College and the Dean of the Enviroment, Horticulture & Agribusiness Division was seated just to my right. He's the dude in charge at the Wine School! He gave me his card and said "When you're ready, give me a call." SWEET! Jim was talking to another guy from the Teaching Winery about satellite internet and this gentleman has a friend who needs internet. He took Jim's card and the friend called the next day. Jim's got the job for next week.

The food was really good too. To start we had a lovely salad of mixed greens (no spinach - I checked) & almonds with little grapes and a red wine vinaigrette. Everyone got chicken, but I had wonderfully seasoned vegetables in phyllo pastry and we all had little baby potatoes and broccoli with red peppers. Wine was served from Lakeview Cellars and EastDell Estates which are two of the wineries that make up part of Niagara Cellars of which Mr. Aykroyd has invested in. For dessert we had a plum tart which was really good and some late harvest wine from Birchwood Estate Wines also included in the Niagara Cellars group.

When lunch was finished, mostly everyone started to leave. A lot of the people that were there were grape growers of course, but also the usual local politicians, business men, etc. and they all had to go back to work. Some people were hanging around to get photos and autographs, and Jim & I were just sitting at our table finishing our drinks. I had to go to the bathroom and we were going to decide what to do next. When I came out, Jim was in the lobby saying that Dan was leaving. We got the door as he was getting ready to get into his car.

I didn't want to miss the opportunity to say hello so I gave Jim the camera, and just walked up to him and introduced myself and we had a little chat. He was so nice and very friendly and approachable. Such a super guy. He even called me Sweetie! That's been the most exciting lunch I've had in a long time. Probably ever.