ELORA – The Elora Lions Club is presenting its second winemakers dinner on April 20 at the GrandWay Events Centre.
And organizer Josef Van den Borre is confident this year’s event will net the charity more than the $3,000 it raised last year to benefit Groves Memorial Community Hospital.
“The place seats 120 people and we’ve already sold 90 tickets,” Van den Borre said in a phone interview on April 3.
“I think we’ll sell out this year.”
Van den Borre said the club was trying to think of different fundraising ideas last year and he suggested a dinner with wine pairings would be fun, “and they said ‘sure.’
“So I found myself organizing last year’s event almost all by myself,” he said with a laugh.
“This year we have a team working on it and it’s going to be great.”
Van den Borre said he likes to use local sources for any of the Lions’ events and GrandWay has the same philosophy of using local sources for its meals when possible.
The wine comes from the Malivoire winery in Beamsville and there are links to the local community as well.
General manager Shiraz Mottiar attended Centre Wellington District High School as a teen and will be the celebrity sommelier for the winemakers dinner.
The four-course meal starts with hors d’oeuvres with a wine pairing, soup and another wine, the main course with another wine pairing, and dessert with an ice wine.
There will also be a raffle for items donated by local businesses and the evening finishes with a live auction of a special prize donated by the Elora Mill and Spa: a four-course dinner for four worth $1,000.
But despite the formal-sounding event, Van den Borre said it will be a “very relaxed, entertaining evening.
“I don’t even own a black tie,” he joked.
Tickets are $150 per person and available by emailing eloralions@gmail.com or through eloralions.org.
