The Naples Grape Festival is a nice way to kick off the fall season. The drive down is scenic, with some leaves that are just starting to change.
We paid $5 to park by the Dollar General on South Main Street, but there are probably better spots with less walking at Hazlitt Vineyards. Some people dare to park on the street, but due to a high volume of vendors and residents, street parking is very limited.
If you are into antiques, or garage sales, the residents in the area take advantage of the high traffic, and spread their s*** on their lawn. Things that are good to grab to spruce up your home: picture frames, furniture (If you aren't parked too far), lamps, kitchen stuff, birdhouses.
I went to the wine tasting area behind the Naples Town Hall, and admission was $15 for about 12-14 tasting booths. As you may know, finger lakes wines are typically on the sweeter side, but they did have some drier linberger wines, and cab francs. There were also 2-3 different beer tastings as well. You can't re-enter after you pay, so get all your tastings done, and buy up the wines you like right then and there.
There is a lot of food near the wine tasting area, and across the street. I opted for Smokin' Petes BBQ. If I had room I would have gotten some grape ice cream, just to try. They had bunches of concord grapes for sale farther down South Main, as well as homegrown garlic and peppers.
Our last stop was Monica's Pies, where I got my grape crumble pie, and a black raspberry for the man friend back home. There are lots of pie vendors, but I got stay loyal to Monica's, and trekked through the bad traffic to get to the other side of town. It will be worth it.
The festival is very crowded. The don't block off the street because then you can't get through the town, so the sidewalks are hard to get around people, and really see the stuff that the craft vendors have on display. Lots of dumb people not paying attention, etc.
If you have a tolerance for crowds, I would say, you gotta at least go down to the festival once in your life. read more