Calling all wine lovers!
The Windsor-Essex region will be welcoming the 20th winery next spring, as Kingsgate Estate Winery has announced it will open its doors in April 2025.
This new winery located in Kingsville will offer wine tastings, a restaurant, and two event rooms for weddings and special events.
Shovels are expected to hit the ground this May and work will be ongoing for 10 months, with the building set to have a California, modern vibe, with light colours, and modern wood. Kingsgate will feature their own wine, and a vineyard will be planted in June.
A post was made on Kingsgate's Facebook and Instagram page on Tuesday, and has received positive feedback from the community, with nine people already booking for wedding's at the venue.
Eadie Mastronardi, alongside her husband Tony, their son Jared, and their daughter-in-law Jordyn will be running the new winery.
They have sold their shares of the Mastronardi Estate Winery in Kingsville, which will continue to be operated by Rino Mastronardi, in order to kickstart their own family business.
Eadie Mastronardi, co-owner of Kingsgate Estate Winery, says it's so exciting to see this project come to fruition.
"We're ready. We're excited. We've already booked about nine weddings in 2025. Since that post we've been inundated with people inquiring about availability, and packages, so we're pretty excited. We think it's going to be something that's going to be well received in our community and Windsor."
She says they will be planting the vineyard this June so they can produce their own wine.
"We've ordered all the vines for that, so that's going to be coming in. It's going to take us about four years to grow and in the meantime we'll have to buy some grapes and produce our own wines. And my husband and my son, Jared and Tony Mastronardi, are the wine makers there so they've been producing wines for many, many years. So they're excited about taking on a new approach there as well."
Mastronardi says they are already looking to build an amphitheatre on the property in the future.
"That's kind of down the road but we are making the provisions with the land when we're building this site to allow for where that amphitheatre is going to be. So we're hoping to in the future bring in some concerts, like summer concert series, bring in some big names. We'll try to get as much Canadian content in there, we'll work with a lot of the promoters that are bringing in some big names."
The land, located at 1000 McCain Side Road in Kingsville, was purchased in 2021.
Mastronardi adds that since the process is just getting started that they would love community and public input on the space, and she encourages those with ideas to reach out through Facebook or Instagram.
An official website for the winery is still being developed at this time.