Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta

Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta is a five-day grand tasting festival held annually in September in Santa Fe, New Mexico — now in its 35th year, it draws over 4,500 attendees and features 90 winery partners alongside 65 of the city's top restaurants. The 2026 edition runs September 23–27, with tickets going on sale June 17, 2026.

The festival traces its origins to a single afternoon in 1991, when 20 restaurants and 20 wineries gathered in a parking lot behind the Sanbusco Center. Today, Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta has expanded into a multi-day program that includes a Grand Tasting, cooking demonstrations, wine seminars, winery luncheons, and partner restaurant and winery dinners held each evening. The festival curates its winery lineup specifically to offer educational programming, with participating wineries selected to engage both casual drinkers and more experienced palates. An annual auction — featuring Reserve Tasting, Silent, and Live components — is also part of the event calendar. The festival is organized as a non-profit, with a working board of directors drawn from Santa Fe's hospitality, culinary, and wine industries.

Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta is organized around the city's green chile harvest season, which peaks in late September. The chile requirement — every participating restaurant must incorporate chile into their tasting portion — is a founding tradition dating to 1991, reflecting the festival's mission to demonstrate that wine pairs with New Mexican cuisine. Tickets for 2026 go on sale June 17; prospective attendees should monitor the official site, as the festival has historically drawn over 3,500 guests annually and event-specific tickets sell by category.

Santa Fe sits at 7,000 feet elevation in northern New Mexico, outside any designated wine AVA, but the festival draws national wineries — historically weighted toward California producers — rather than showcasing a single regional appellation. That national scope, combined with the local culinary focus, defines the festival's identity: wine from across the country paired with the distinctive flavors of Santa Fe's restaurant community.