Kingston held its first annual Corks & Forks international wine festival this weekend.

The festival featured lots of seminars, workshops and wine tasting events and ended with a grand tasting brunch in downtown Kingston.

There was music, delicious food and, of course, wine.

“The experience has been amazing, I mean, to see people from Kingston coming out to enjoy the wines of the county and Niagara and just having a good time,” said Tony Aspler, who was in Kingston for the festival. “The food has also been amazing.”

The three-day festival included seminars for winemakers and consumers, meet-and-greets with wine creators and wine tasting.

“It has been a wonderful opportunity to bring this type of experience with wine from around the world here to Kingston,” festival founder Debbie Trenholm, who’s held the event in her hometown of Ottawa, told Global News.

About 600 people from across North America were in the limestone city for the festival.

“Kingston, to me, is one of those untapped markets. There’s lots of wine events in Toronto and Montreal and Ottawa as well.  I see that Kingston has a vibrant wine and food scene, and it was right to have a festival of this nature,” says Trenholm.

Wine from Prince Edward County was holding its own with grapes from more renowned places like Spain, Italy, France, and — a little closer to home — Niagara Region.

“They really expanded my mind about how wine works with wine glasses, making it taste different as well as different types of food,” says Tim Kuepfer, the owner of Broken Stone Winery in Prince Edward County.

Many attending the event found Kingston to be a beautiful venue to host Corks & Forks and loved the selection of local wines that were featured at the festival.

“I’ve been to many wine events around the world and this has been quite an experience, in fact, the unique thing about this event was the concentration on vegan food and vegan wine,” says Aspler.

Organizers hope to make Corks and Forks an annual spring tradition in Kingston.

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