Guest contributed by Rebecca LeHeup and Andrew Mackenzie                                                         Race Founders and Road Warriors

The idea appropriately enough was born over a bottle of wine – the Grange of Prince Edward’s ’08 Riesling. We are both healthy advocates of culinary travel, and were looking for a spring run to take part in. With busy lives, the appeal of joining an organized 10K that is fun and allows participants a genuine local experience was even more appealing. Unfortunately such an event did not exist in Ontario, especially not like the vineyard runs we’d heard of in France. The obvious question was “why not?”.

We realized that the distance between this dream and the reality of our home-based gastronomic island of Prince Edward County with beautiful geography and dozens of new wineries was literally a handful of kilometers.

With another glass in hand, we opened a map and penciled out several routes with a focus on the natural cluster of wineries surrounding Hillier, Ontario. By our calculation, 10K and a few would take us past eight wineries, and if properly organized could end up at  Norman Hardie’s , precisely in front of his masterful new brick pizza oven.

Could it be this easy? We jumped in the car and a few hours later had enthusiastic commitments from Norman to host the finishing lunch, from Jens & Bruno, owners of the  Old Third Winery to act as the starting point; they even volunteered to use their “bird banger” to get everyone going.

The other wineries jumped aboard too,  agreeing to offer the runners a tasting at each of their wineries, and friends and colleagues were also eager to participate.

Hey, if everyone has half the fun we’ve had putting this inaugural run together we may see Terroir Runs in other parts of the County, in other regions of Ontario, in other provinces across the country, and maybe even around the world.

So, Ready, Set, Sante!

************************************************************************************

The Terroir Run is one of many events, businesses and services in Prince Edward County that contribute to our community’s health and wellbeing.

If you would like to know more about starting a business in Prince Edward County or already have a business here and would like to learn more about the free confidential services available to help with your business please get in touch!

Karin Desveaux-Potters, Economic Development Office, Prince Edward County. 613 476 2148 x 344, kdesveaux-potters@pecounty.on.ca

Tags: 10K, culinary travel, Hillier, Prince Edward County, vineyard, wine
Comments (0) | Posted over two years ago by Karin Desveaux-Potters