It’s wine festival time again in South Philly.
The Vendemmia Wine Festival is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 11, at Steven Girard Park. It will run from 2 to 6 p.m.
It has come a long way since the first festival, held in the courtyard of Saint Agnes Hospital on Broad Street in South Philadelphia. Now it draws more than 6,000 people and features wine, food and music that, as the website describes, tries “to capture our Italian heritage and spirit and keep tradition alive.”
Tickets can be purchased online for $50 per person or a reserved table of 10 for $500. You can also purchase tickets the day of the event for $60.
The event moved from the park for several years, but as Dr. Jerry Ventose, founder of the festival, said in a note explaining the move back, “What we learned is everyone liked it better when we had less room to move about but more opportunities to talk and laugh and see old friends.”
The event is also a fund-raiser, supporting up to 20 annual scholarships awarded by the Vendemmia Foundation to local teens entering high school and college.
One highlight is the competition among amateur winemakers, who enter in any of a dozen categories. This is a serious competition that has evolved under the coordination of Dr. Jerry Vernose, founder of the festival, Joe Fiola, the University of Maryland Extension specialist for viticulture and small fruit, and competition coordinator Vince Novello.
“Winemakers put their whole hearts into it, and every year we see more quantity of wines entered and better quality wines as well,” Fiola said.
One of the judges will be Tom Caruso, the owner and winemaker for Pray Tell Wines, a Philly producer. Caruso’s journey began with helping his grandfather make wine in South Philly to learning the ropes at an urban winery in Brooklyn, New York, to making wine on the West Coast before recently pulling up stakes and returning “home.”
His winery is located on the border of the Olde Kensington and Fishtown neighborhoods at 1615 N. Hancock St., and open to the public from 3 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays through Saturdays and by appointment.
More on the winery and winemaker can be found at this link.
“[The wine festival] is a truly wonderful full-circle moment for me, as I used to participate in this with my grandfather as a kid,” he told PennLive. “We actually have his participation certificate on display in the tasting room in the winery from 2003.
“My memories from that event were always sitting at big tables surrounded by my family and my grandfather’s neighborhood friends. Beautiful evenings outside, and seeing the pride my grandfather had in sharing his wine with everyone, and knowing that I got to help squish the grapes and taste the sweet juice,” he added. “ It was one of the many reasons that made me love the winemaking and wine-sharing process as a kid and all of the traditions around it!”
The Vendemmia Foundation is a non-profit, charitable organization that’s dedicated to preserving Italian culture; to advancing the understanding of Italian heritage and the art of winemaking; to fostering pride in community; and to supporting the educational needs of students of Italian heritage in South Philadelphia.