Two more Cs have joined the i4C story: confidence and community.

In 2011, I accepted a role helping launch a new wine event.

I didn’t realize I was about to spend the next decade and a half watching an industry discover itself.

One of the great gifts of my role with the International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration is that I rarely experience it from just one perspective.

My work connects me with the organizing team, producers, sponsors, media, guests and volunteers. Each brings different priorities, pressures and hopes.

Boards think about legacy and governance. Event managers think about budgets, logistics and the overarching experience. Producers think about reputation, relationships, exposure and sales. Sponsors think about return on investment and relationships. Media look for stories, personalities and emerging trends. Guests want memorable experiences. Volunteers want to contribute to something meaningful.

Each comes with a different idea of what i4C should be. And none of them is wrong.

Over the years, I've come to see that my best contribution is as an interpreter among those creating the story – listening for what matters to each group, finding common ground, and helping people see beyond what is directly in front of them. Good communication isn't just broadcasting a message. It's helping people understand one another.

And over fifteen years, I've also watched that conversation change.

When i4C began, Ontario's wine industry was looking outward for much of its validation. International recognition mattered enormously. We wanted critics, sommeliers and winemakers to confirm what many of us already believed our vineyards were capable of producing.

Those voices still matter. They challenge us and broaden the conversation. But the tone has changed. Today, the conversation feels more like one among peers.

Ontario has found greater confidence in what it grows and what it makes. Confidence without arrogance. Pride without complacency.

What gives me the greatest optimism, though, isn't just found in the wines and winemakers. It's found in the people who volunteer.

The volunteer team is where i4C’s many perspectives become one shared effort.

Volunteers come from all sorts of backgrounds, some within the industry and others industry-adjacent. Some are simply superfans. Many have never met before. Yet almost immediately, they're working together like they've known one another for years.

They serve guests. Solve problems. Support winemakers. Adapt when plans change. Step in wherever they are needed. Keep smiling through long days and July heat. Then come back the next morning and do it all again.

Working hard together creates a particular bond. By the end of the weekend, people who met only days earlier share stories, inside jokes and friendships that outlast the event.

The earliest days of i4C were shaped by big thinkers – people who believed Ontario could stand confidently alongside the world's great cool climate wine regions. They wanted Ontario to have a celebration capable of drawing beneficial international attention – strengthening its reputation, credibility and opportunities.

Those of us who signed on in the first years were asked to make sacrifices in service of that vision, with the expectation that things would look different once the event became firmly established.

As it turned out, things did change – just not in the ways many of us had predicted.

Somewhere along the way, though, I realized I'd received something I value even more.

A front-row seat to the evolution of an event that has helped bring confidence to an industry – an event at its best when people kept perspective, saw things through one another’s eyes, and created something larger than any one of them had imagined.

That's my view from the middle. And I'll always be grateful for it.

(A slightly condensed version of the above appeared on LinkedIn, where I had to cut some important thoughts to suit its character limit!)