Wine Season!

We are into crunch time here at Camp Good Days, as we are not only in the process of recruiting summer staff, campers, and volunteers for the summer, as well as preparing the Recreational Facility for all of the summer camping programs, but we also have one of our successful special fundraising events coming up.

Over the past 15 years, the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition and Wine Auction Dinner has become the largest fundraising event in the Greater Rochester area to benefit the children and families we serve. The 15th Annual Wine Auction Dinner will take place on Saturday, May 2, 2015 at the Rochester Plaza Hotel, 70 State Street, Downtown Rochester. This exciting evening will begin with a Wine Tasting, Silent Auction & Live Auction Preview at 5:30 PM, and the Auction Dinner at 7:00 PM. Once again this year, Matthew Chung will serve as the Lead Auctioneer and Senator Rich Funke will be our Master of Ceremonies.

The 15th Annual Finger Lakes International Wine Competition, which was held March 21 & 22, 2015, was a resounding success. More than 3700 wines were entered into the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. These entries came from 924 wineries, including 125 New York State wineries, from 27 different countries around the world, all 50 states and six Canadian Provinces.

THANK YOU to all the amazingly dedicated volunteers. To everyone who helped out this weekend, I cannot thank you enough. We cannot do what we do without our volunteers, and especially this weekend. Whether you washed glasses, uncorked wine, poured it, moved it or made the bourbon s’mores, you contributed to another fantastic year at the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition.

It was so nice to see the huge amount of volunteers we had return this year for the weekend. We were so pleased with their commitment to Camp Good Days. We were thrilled to have many of them join us at the Judges Dinner on Saturday night at Max’s Eastman Place.

All of the wines were evaluated by a world-renowned panel of judges representing distributors, educators, enologists, sommeliers, restaurateurs, winemakers and writers from all over the United States and around the world. The judges awarded Double Gold (unanimous), Gold, Silver and Bronze medals and only medal winning wines will be featured at the Wine Auction Dinner, along with a delicious meal, great friends and conversation, and fabulous silent and live auction items.

It’s hard to believe that Peter Parts, a member of our Board of Directors, approached me with the idea of holding a wine competition fifteen years ago. Who would have thought it would grow into what it has today? We could not do it without him, or the entire FLIWC Committee.

We were also pleased to have a new title sponsor come aboard this year, as Waterloo Container became the Gold Medal Sponsor. With their help, some of the volunteers that worked both days were able to enjoy the Judges Dinner at a no cost. We were thrilled to have them come aboard, and hope they’ll continue their support for years to come.

We wrapped up the weekend stopping at a number of participating wineries in the Finger Lakes, and with a dinner at the Genesee Brew House. I personally loved the Bavarian pretzels and mustard at the Brew House, which is truly a treasure to the City of Rochester.

In just one month, we will be auctioning off the medal winning wines at the Camp Good Days Wine Auction Dinner. Tickets to attend the Wine Auction Dinner are $150.00 per person and can be purchased by calling Camp Good Days at 585-624-5555 or online viawww.fliwc.com or www.campgooddays.org.

If you love wine, this is the event you want to attend. Tickets would also make a fantastic gift for that special someone. In addition to having a wonderful time and tasting some of the best wines in the world, you will leave that evening knowing that you have helped to create some good days and special times for some very special children and families in our community.