Wine festival supports local charity group

Big Red Liquors hosted its 10th Annual Wine festival at the Bloomington Convention Center Thursday night.\n"The event supports the Boys and Girls Club, it's our charity of choice and we have 25 volunteers from there working tonight," said Jason Lester, regional manager of Big Red Liquors.\nGary Panlar, a Big Red store manager, said other than supporting the Boys and Girls Club, the event gets people interested and turned on to wine, and gives them a chance to taste a lot of wine for only $25.\n"This is for anyone who enjoys wine, students, locals and business people," Panlar said.\nThere were 50 booths within the convention center offering a taste from vineyards across the world. Australian, Chilean, French, German, South African and American wines were offered at the festival.\nDavid Meek, assistant vineyard manager of Oliver Winery, said these festivals are an opportunity for wine producers to promote their product and sample the works of others in the industry.\n"We are here to show that Midwestern wine can compete with other types of wine," Meek said. "This is an exciting industry. Running a winery is like playing the stock market, some times you lose big, and some times you win big."\nVisitors to the festival said the event is also a chance for them to expand their wine pallets. \n"There is such a wide variety of wines and distributors," said J.D. Wire, a Bloomington resident. "I like the opportunity to try a lot of different wines and the people seem very knowledgeable about the products."\nAll proceeds of the event went to the Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington.