The annual Festival of the Grape and Cask and Keg take place on Oct. 5 and 6 this year. (Vanessa Broadbent / Osoyoos Times)
On Oct. 5 and 6, 2019, the Oliver Tourism Association will host the 23rd annual Festival of the Grape. This well-established event, hosted at the Oliver Community Centre grounds, is known to bring thousands of visitors each year.
Not only can visitors sip their favourite wines on Sunday afternoon, but also there’s the addition of the Cask & Keg festival on Saturday evening, which features pours from surrounding distilleries, breweries and cideries.
Offering stellar food and the best hospitality around, the Oliver Fall Festival Weekend is also proud to be the home of the Annual Fall Art Sale hosted by the Oliver Arts Council.
And to top it all off, a merchant market will also be featured, where vendors will have their best items available for sale.
“We are proud to play host to this important community weekend,” says Danielle Hutton, chair of the board of the Oliver Tourism Association. “As our signature event, this weekend is a celebration of not only harvest, but also of our friends, family and visitors who help make Oliver the best place to live and work.”
Cask & Keg is an outdoor, adult-only evening event focused on celebrating the creations from local and regional breweries, distilleries and cideries. This fun, relaxed evening will be filled with live entertainment provided by Knacker’s Yard and tasty morsels created by a variety of food trucks. New for 2019, there will be organized team events for games like Beer Pong.
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The very next day the God of wine, Bacchus, comes to visit at noon with the kick off to the 23rd annual Festival of the Grape, also at Oliver Community Park. After the opening ceremonies, the wineries open their stalls to the public.
“More than 50 wineries attended in 2018 and this year we expect that number to be higher,” said Hutton.
Live music will be provided by the rock group Jack and Jill, hailing from Penticton and Summerland, who come to rock with set lists that include a wide variety of rock and roll music from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. The dance floor will be cutting loose to covers ranging from ZZ Top and No Doubt to Green Day and Queen. The Kids’ Zone rounds out this family-friendly festival, where kids can enjoy physical activities and crafts and snacks, all for a small child-minding fee.
The Festival of the Grape allows the public to sample the best wineries in the region in one place, while enjoying the live entertainment, merchant vendors and food trucks as well as the highly competitive Grape Stomp, where costumed teams compete in five minute heats for the top spot.
“One other thing we are particularly excited about is the VIP area this year,” said Festival committee member and owner of Uncorked BnB, Judy Born. “We have a limited number of tickets to this exclusive area, which will feature seminars and tastings, small bites from a selection of the region’s best chefs as well as other exciting perks.”
A pilot project that proved very successful in 2018 and was carried over to 2019 is the on-site liquor store. This gives all of the attending liquor purveyors the opportunity to showcase their wares, and allows the attendees to take home their favourites from the festival.
Tickets to the event are available online at showpass.com by searching Festival of the Grape 2019 and Oliver Cask & Keg and at the Oliver Visitor Centre, 6431 Station St., Oliver, B.C.
