Truly a Global Village

I was recently scouring through our guest book, where visitors can write their name and leave a comment, as well as indicate where they are from. It is sometimes interesting to see what people have to say about our winery and our wine. All the comments I came across were very positive, mostly either thanking us for help in finding the right wine, commenting on how much they enjoyed their experience, or just simply stating their intentions to return again someday. When I looked through our guest book, which only runs back until June 2009, I was quite  surprised at the number of people from different locales that have visited our winery and the surrounding area in the past year and a bit alone.

As expected, there is a lot of visitors from the immediate surrounding area, such as Fergus, Elora and Guelph. And also unsurprisingly, a good amount of visitors from surrounding towns and cities have signed their names in our guest book. Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, Acton, Elmira, Rockwood, etc. In fact, I came across people from 57 cities and towns across Ontario, ranging from Thunder Bay to Ottawa to Sarnia to Port Elgin, and 53 places in between - pretty much every corner of our vast province.
As I looked harder, I also found that there were many visitors from out of province as well. In fact, 14 towns and cities across Canada were represented as well. Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Prince George were the biggest cities that visitors came from, but there were also 8 people from smaller cities and towns across Canada, also representing the provinces of Newfoundland & Labrador, and Nova Scotia. Surprisingly, I did not come across anyone from Quebec or New Brunswick.
And finally, I was pleasantly surprised to find visitors hailing from different countries around the world, varying from Denmark, Austria, England, Norway and Scotland. There were also a few visitors from different parts of the U.S. that had stopped and signed their name in our guest book. A couple from Dallas, Texas, people from Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, Florida and Virginia, someone from Chicago, Illinois, and two separate people from Phoenix, Arizona, coincidentally.
Altogether, just in the past year and 5 months, we have seen countless people hailing from 87 cities and towns spread across 7 countries, 7 provinces and 8 states. When we look at these numbers, it really is quite amazing. While it may be a stretch to say that Cox Creek Cellars is known worldwide, it is quite widely known in Ontario, and even to some Americans and Europeans who have visited us in the past, truly making our visitors global in presence. It is something to at least remember next time you happen to stop by at our store here. You never know who you may run into.