BG Wine Fest brings big crowd after year’s hiatus | News

They also sipped some wine.

Like many of an estimated 500 visitors to the Bowling Green Wine Festival at the RailPark, Miller and Missal needed to quench their thirst for socialization as much as for the beverage from fermented grapes.

“It’s very nice to be able to get out again,” said Missal, an Illinois native who retired to Bowling Green two years ago.

Missal, her sister and their husbands were sampling wines from many of the eight wineries set up inside the depot for an event that was held in 2018 and 2019 but was canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As she stood in front of the booth for Rockfield-based Traveler’s Cellar Winery and sampled some of its product, Miller joined her sister in welcoming the return of the wine fest.

“I’ve been to all three (wine fests),” said Miller, who moved to Bowling Green seven years ago. “The people are always friendly, and it’s nice to have all the wineries represented in one place so you don’t have to travel.”

Judging from the long line that had formed at the ticket table as Miller was speaking, she had plenty of company in welcoming the opportunity to get out of the house and sample some red, white and rosé wines.

“We sold more advance tickets this year than we did for the first two events,” said Jamie Johnson, executive director of the RailPark. “You could tell people were hungry to get out and go to an in-person event.”

And not just people from Bowling Green. Johnson said advance tickets were sold to wine lovers from Indiana, Tennessee and even from as far away as Montana.

It’s a welcome response for Johnson, who depends on the wine fest as a major fundraiser for the nonprofit tourist site and missed that income last year.

“There’s no way to make up for the revenue we lost last year,” Johnson said. “But we’re expecting more than 500 people today, which will be up from 450 in 2019.”

The event has grown in other ways, offering live music for the first time and expanding its food offerings from one vendor to four.

Johnson said she hopes to bring in $10,000 to $15,000 from the event, which is a shared fundraiser with the nonprofit Kentucky Wineries Association that was formed in 2007 to serve Kentucky’s growing wine industry.

“We have a great partnership with the RailPark,” said Brian Young, owner of Nicholasville’s 1922 House winery and treasurer for the KWA. “This event raises money for the association, and it raises awareness for both the association and the RailPark.”

Saturday’s wine fest was the second in-person event Young has attended since pandemic restrictions have been lifted, and he said the response from the public has been good.

“We did one event in Elizabethtown, and it was packed,” he said. “People are chomping at the bit to get out.”

With Kentucky’s wine industry growing steadily to where a Kentucky Department of Agriculture publication now lists 77 wineries statewide, Young hopes Kentuckians are also chomping at the bit to try some Bluegrass State vino.

“When people are purchasing wine, they can buy from California or they can purchase Kentucky wine and help their neighbors,” he said.

Many examples of Kentucky’s expanding wine economy were on display Saturday, including Smiths Grove-based Bluegrass Vineyard.

Jessica Rogers, co-owner with her husband of Bluegrass Winery, said it has been in business four years and is “expanding a little bit more every year.”

“We started in our basement,” Rogers said. “We have 30 acres, including four-and-a-half acres planted with grapevines. We’re almost finished with a new wine production facility.”

Rogers said events like Saturday’s wine fest are great opportunities for wine producers.

“We love coming here and getting so many wineries together at once,” she said. “People can come out and see what Kentucky wineries have to offer.”