Features

October 21, 2009

Festival heats up despite forecast

Back Mountain Wine Festival offers sampling of Pennsylvania’s finest.

By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
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If you’re warming up with a glass of vino – spicy and mulled, perhaps – at the Back Mountain Wine Festival on Saturday, you might pause a moment to appreciate the harvesters who picked grapes last weekend amid raw winds, cold rain and wet snow.

“With the rain and wet snow that came down, our hands got soaked immediately. We had gloves, but they weren’t waterproof,” Denise Karlotski of Pavlick Hill Vineyard said, noting the pickers’ hands felt “like icicles.”

“Needless to say, it was an interesting experience.”

Despite the inclement weather, Karlotski said, the dozen friends and relatives who showed up to pick grapes at her family’s fields in Hunlock Creek enjoyed working together.

As proof, she said, “People said they’d come back next year.”

Next year, by the way, is when the wine made from those particular Concord grapes will be ready to drink.

At this week’s festival, wine-lovers will taste vintages at least a year old.

The event, set for 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Pikes Creek Raceway on Route 118, west of Dallas, will include a miniature-golf tournament, music of the ’50s and ’60s through today by Jenny and Eric Sperazza as Jeneric and a food stand staffed by members of the Lake Silkworth Volunteer Fire Department, which will benefit from the proceeds.

“We want to have hearty food there, for people who want lunch,” said organizer Dan Tompkins of the NEPA Wine Country association. For those who want something lighter, vendors also will offer such regionally produced fare as chocolates, cheese, baked goods and candied almonds to complement the wine.

“You can snack and sample,” Tompkins said. “We encourage people to taste for themselves.”

“I think of all the Pennsylvania wineries as my children,” Tompkins said. “They each bring something different to the table.”

Wineries to be represented include Pavlick Hill Vineyard, which has a retail store on Route 118, Lehman Township, the Bartolai Winery from Route 92, Exeter Township, and Lopez Winery and Vineyard from Lopez, Sullivan County.

Along with cabernet sauvignons, chardonnays, merlots, Rieslings and specialty blends, at least one wine – an apple fruit wine from Pavlick Hill Vineyard – will be served mulled and spiced, Karlotski said.

It could be just what you need to fortify yourself for the next round of cold precipitation.

IF YOU GO

What: Back Mountain Wine Festival

When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday

Where: Pikes Creek Raceway, Route 118, west of Dallas

Admission: $10 in advance, $15 at the door, $5 for designated drivers and those under 21.

More info: www.NEPAwinecountry.com or 836-7222

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