After more than 30 years, Grape Fest makes smashing return at Windsor's Caboto Club

With his eyes closed and his face scrunched, Paolo Cremasco held on tight to the sides of his barrel and tried to stomp on as many grapes as he could. 

Though it was the 11-year-old's first time smashing grapes under his feet, he was set on winning Sunday's grape-stomping contest at the Giovanni Caboto Club's Grape Fest. 

"I put my heart into it and I stomped as hard as I could," said Cremasco following the one and a half minute event. 

He says he brought "fast feet" and leaned on advice from his cousin, which was to "focus more on stomping around the sides [of the barrel]." 

Grape-stomping was just one of the highlights at this weekend's Grape Fest, which made its grand return to Windsor. President of the Caboto Club, Robert Brait, said that the fest had stopped running in 1993.

Brait told CBC News that it was nostalgia and a desire to hold on to Italian traditions that brought the fest back. 

"A lot of it had to do with remembering our fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandfathers and sort of the tradition of wine-making that they had and we thought, 'you know what? let's bring that back,'" said Brait. 

"We felt like it was missing, little bit of our culture ... we thought was disappearing a little bit." 

Brait says it was a "great feeling" to see all generations of families that came out to celebrate this weekend, as he has fond memories of the fest as a teen. 

"One of the first memories I have is coming in as a young teenager on Friday mornings and Saturday mornings and cleaning up after Grape Fest, cause my dad was pretty heavily involved with the organization at that time," he said. 

"So to see a new set of young kids come in, it's just sort of passing that tradition along, making sure that we don't lose that part of the Italian heritage." 

The three-day long event, which started on Friday, included food, live music and some contests. 

Brait's favourite part of the event was the spaghetti eating contest that was held on Friday night. 

"To see them just go and try to kill off like a pound and a quarter of cooked spaghetti, the winner was so excited, he was just jumping up and down. I don't know how he managed to do it," said Brait with a laugh. 

As for Cremasco, he and another person tied for first place in the grape-stomping contest for their age group. 

The Caboto Club says it plans on making Grape Fest an annual September tradition once again, with hopes that it will be even better for the club's 100th anniversary celebration next year.