Last Niagara Festival (New Vintages Festival) I rated the wineries based on their value for offering with respect to the new-style passport program.  Before I continue let me explain the new way versus the old way.  The old way you bought a passport and could visit as many wineries as you wished taking advantage of what they had on offer for the program (food pairing, new vintage wine tasting, tour, etc.).  The new way is called a “winery experience” – you buy your passport and only have 5 tear-off tickets, which you surrender to each winery you visit when you take advantage of what they are offering.  The new way forces you to be more selective with the wineries you visit, thus you want to make sure you are getting bang-for-your-buck (afterall you can only visit 5).  The old way you paid $30 and had free reign to visit whomever you wished … the new way you pay $30 and can visit 5 wineries, and, if you do the math, they had better be doling out something worth a minimum of a $6 experience.  The flipside of the new way is that those without passports pay $10 for the “experience” – so the passport becomes the more economical way.  The old way, the passport you bought was only good for 1 of the 2 weekends of the festival; the new way your passport is good throughout the length of the festival.

Now, for what I am about to write I might just lose my ticket privileges for any upcoming festival (Icewine, New Vintages) but someone has to say it … (Read more)