Hansen speaks at Grape & Wine Fest.

Farmers are constantly facing adversity with the weather. The grape growers are saying that this year, mother nature has been kind to them. Wednesday they kicked off the annual grape and wine festival. The guest speaker at the event was Rick Hansen, the ‘Man in Motion’ marathoner who knows what adversity is all about.

Rick Hansen rolled into Club Roma in St. Catharines this afternoon to a hero’s welcome: “It is so great to be here as a guest of the Ontario Grape Growers. We’re just a few
blocks down the road. I came through here on my Man in Motion world tour.”

Hansen connected right away with this room full of grape growers — his grandfather was a farmer: “And he introduced us to the world of agriculture, and to understand how profound this industry was. To ride through those tough times when the weather hits you straight on. To have the financing to make payments. To deal with global markets. No matter what you did seemed to be a challenge.”

The grape and wine industry is familiar with challenges. One of the biggest, trying to convince more people to buy Ontario premium VQA wines.

Every VQA bottle is 100 per cent Ontario grapes. There are 17 thousand acres of vineyards, most of them in Niagara. Of those 17 thousand acres of vineyards, 95 percent of the grapes go to making wine.

And each acre of grapes turned into wine generates 33 thousand dollars in economic value to Ontario every year.