South Ridge Winery kicks off summer events
Published 11:20 am Thursday, June 13, 2024
South Ridge Winery offers wine slushies available for purchase.
Crenshaw’s Grit and Grind attends the Kick Off Summer Arts and Craft Festival, selling their coffees and refreshers. Pictured (left to right) Jared Hawsey and Amber Hawsey.
Thistle ‘n Dixie sells flower bouquets at the Kick Off Summer Arts and Craft Festival. Pictured (left to right) Callie Woodham and David Woodham.
The Kick Off Summer Arts and Craft Festival organized by South Ridge Winery features a variety of vendors.
During the Kick Off Summer Arts and Craft Festival, attendees sit underneath the shade at South Ridge Winery.
South Ridge Winery invited community members to come out for a day in the sun at the Kick Off Arts and Craft Festival. The annual event offered slushies, vendors and activities for all ages to enjoy.
The winery co-owner Tonya Pippin said the event was aimed at highlighting home-town vendors.
“I wanted to highlight the businesses around this county and surrounding counties, because there’s so many businesses around here that people don’t know about, some people don’t even know that we still have a winery here, and we do,” Pippin said. “We offer tons of different things around this community, and people just need to know about it.”
Held this year on June 8, the festival included family-friendly activities and vendors.
For the kids in attendance, there were pony rides, face painting vendors and kid-friendly slushies with flavors such as Coca-Cola and lemonade.
Additionally, there were different flavors of wine slushies for the adults , flavors like sangria and daiquiri, which were popular among the attendees.
“We try to do around 200 of those, and then we’ll mix up more if we need them,” Pippin said. “We learned that the hard way because we go through them so fast, it’s better to have them pre-prepared, so they can just pick it up and walk around with them.”
The vendors exhibited crafts; paintings, candles, wood burnings and clothes, just a few of the items sold in the different tents.
Some businesses sold edible crafts like pickles, honey and jams. A few of these vendors opted to include free samples of their products, allowing attendees to taste-test their products.
The Bearded Pickle, allowed patrons to grab slices of their mild or spicy dill pickles, and Maund’s Mills, served cane syrup, barbeque sauces and honeys on small wooden ice cream spoons.
The Candied Siren returned to the festival and sold freeze-dried candies and fruits.
“This is our third year doing the kickoff at the winery,” said Courtney Swindle, the owner of The Candied Siren. “It’s always a great turnout every year. There’s tons of vendors that show up with a variety of products and things, and then of course, with the winery, you have wine slushies, which is great for this time of year.”
Now, with the Kick Off Summer Art and Craft Festival coming to an end, Pippin and South Ridge Winery have set their sights on future events.
“Thank you to all our vendors for coming out and bringing their stuff, because without them we wouldn’t be able to do this,” Pippin said.
South Ridge Winery’s next event will be a trivia night on June 15 from 6 – 8 p.m. South Ridge Winery is located at 3297 Live Oak Road in Luverne.
