USA TODAY 10Best
Pacific Wine & Food Classic named best in North America
Best General Food Festival (2020)
Mouthwatering tastings, live cooking demos, beautiful venues, celebrity chefs and sommelier-paired wine lists — these 10 North American food festivals each offer a totally travel-worthy epicurean adventure.
The top 10 winners in the category Best General Food Festival are as follows:
- South Beach Wine & Food Festival - Miami
- Finger Lakes Wine Festival - Watkins Glen, N.Y.
- New York City Wine & Food Festival - New York
- New Orleans Wine & Food Experience - New Orleans
- Bounty of Yamhill County - McMinnville, Ore.
- A Taste of Colorado - Denver
- Hawaii Food & Wine Festival - Hawaii
- World Food Championships - Dallas
- San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival - San Diego
- Pacific Wine & Food Classic - Newport Beach, Calif.
Photo courtesy of South Beach Wine & Food Festival
No. 10:
Sponsored by the Food Network, this large festival spans four days in Miami Beach and surrounding locales. There is a huge lineup of walk around tastings, seminars, brunches, late night parties, intimate theme dinners and even outdoor events ranging from yoga to golf. Many are held at iconic Miami Beach hotels, featuring locally famed eateries, a slate of Food Network personalities and dozens of guest chefs.
Photo courtesy of Finger Lakes Wine Festival
No. 9:
For three days each July, some of the best Finger Lakes wineries come together in Watkins Glen for a weekend of fun in the sun, live music, cooking demos and the largest showcase of wines from New York state. More than 80 wineries attend the event at Watkins Glen International.
Photo courtesy of New York City Wine & Food Festival
No. 8:
The Big Apple puts on a big festival, with more than one hundred events throughout the city, featuring over 500 participating wineries, restaurants and food suppliers. There is a large slate of A-list chefs, experts, food personalities and even professional athletes. Large events such as the grand tastings are intermixed with intimate specialty dinners, demos, seminars and many hands-on classes, all held at various locations and famed restaurants throughout the city.
Photo courtesy of New Orleans Wine & Food Experience
No. 7:
New Orleans plays host to hundreds of festivals each year, with one of the most anticipated being the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience each spring. For more than two decades, NOWFE has featured Grand Tastings, Vinola the premium wine tasting, wine and food seminars, hands-on experiences, and the iconic Royal Street Stroll, which brings together rare antiques, fine art, live jazz and stunning architecture along of one America’s most famous streets. Guests get up close and personal with winemakers from around the world and New Orleans top chefs throughout.
Photo courtesy of Bounty of Yamhill County
No. 6:
This annual summer festival is a favorite thanks in large part to its setting in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, a prime spot for both winemaking and farm to table cuisine. The schedule is built around a triumvirate of chefs, farmers and wineries, almost all of them local, and many classes and events are held at the wineries and farms themselves, rather than in more typical hotel ballrooms.
Photo courtesy of A Taste of Colorado
No. 5:
This festival in Denver each autumn is the largest free admission food and music event in Colorado, attracting half a million people each year. Attendees will find food from 50 of Colorado’s best restaurants and food trucks, a craft marketplace, kids activities and a stage hosting more than 25 live acts from around the region and the country.
Photo courtesy of Hawai'i Food & Wine Festival/Reid Shimabukuro
No. 4:
Created by the 50th State’s two most famous culinary personalities, Chefs Roy Yamaguchi and Alan Wong, this festival is unusual in its breadth and scope. One of the few week-long events of its kind, it is also statewide, spanning multiple locations on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island of Hawaii, and often draws multiple James Beard Award Winners and Iron Chefs. The festival is focused more on marquee events than a daily roster of classes and sessions.
Photo courtesy of World Food Championships
No. 3:
The World Food Championships represent the largest competition in Food Sport, an event with 1,400 cooks from 42 states and 15 countries competing across 10 categories. Since the event debuted in 2012, it has launched the careers of more than 30 television food stars and awarded more than 2.5 million in prize money.
Photo courtesy of San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival
No. 2:
Sandy beaches and sailboats set the scene for this weeklong festival in San Diego. Celebrity chefs, top notch winemakers, mixologists, Master Sommeliers, brewmasters and James Beard-winning authors join together for more than 40 events.
Photo courtesy of Pacific Wine and Food Classic
No. 1:
A ticket to the Pacific Wine & Food Classic covers tastings from more than 100 purveyors of food, wine, beer and cocktails, each inspired by the summer season in SoCal. Highlights include a silent disco, wine garden, a taco and beer lounge and a clam bake.
A panel of experts partnered with 10Best editors to pick the initial nominees, and the top 10 winners were determined by popular vote.
Congratulations to all these winning events!
About 10Best Readers' Choice Awards
Nominees are submitted by a panel of experts. 10Best editors narrow the field to select the final set of nominees for the Readers’ Choice Awards. Readers can vote once per category, per day. For any questions or comments, please read the FAQ or email USA TODAY 10Best.
The Experts
Barry Kahn
When newly minted Everfest CEO Barry Kahn saw the... Read More
When newly minted Everfest CEO Barry Kahn saw the opportunity to merge Everfest into Qcue, the company he has run for more than a decade, there was no hesitation. Both companies shared a common history as successful Austin software startups that received worldwide recognition for reimagining the live entertainment space. Since its founding in 2014, Everfest has grown into the market leader in festival discovery, showcasing more than 20,000 festivals and hosting the renowned festival guide and magazine, Fest300. The Everfest platform hosts an online community for festival fans globally and gives festival organizers another channel for ticket sales, while connecting vendors, artists, sponsors and volunteers to new opportunities.
Barry Kahn
When newly minted Everfest CEO Barry Kahn saw the opportunity to merge Everfest into Qcue, the company he has run for more than a decade, there was no hesitation. Both companies shared a common history as successful Austin software startups that received worldwide recognition for reimagining the live entertainment space. Since its founding in 2014, Everfest has grown into the market leader in festival discovery, showcasing more than 20,000 festivals and hosting the renowned festival guide and magazine, Fest300. The Everfest platform hosts an online community for festival fans globally and gives festival organizers another channel for ticket sales, while connecting vendors, artists, sponsors and volunteers to new opportunities.
Gareth Hornberger
As Director of Consumer at Eventbrite, Gareth is... Read More
As Director of Consumer at Eventbrite, Gareth is responsible for establishing Eventbrite as the best place to discover live experiences. Gareth has spent more than a decade developing innovative strategies and award-winning campaigns for iconic global brands including Google and Levi Strauss & Co. He currently lives in San Francisco and in his spare time you’ll find him at a yoga class or hunting down the best electronic music shows.
Gareth Hornberger
As Director of Consumer at Eventbrite, Gareth is responsible for establishing Eventbrite as the best place to discover live experiences. Gareth has spent more than a decade developing innovative strategies and award-winning campaigns for iconic global brands including Google and Levi Strauss & Co. He currently lives in San Francisco and in his spare time you’ll find him at a yoga class or hunting down the best electronic music shows.
10Best Editors
USA TODAY 10Best provides users with original,... Read More
USA TODAY 10Best provides users with original, unbiased and experiential travel coverage of top attractions, things to see and do, and restaurants for top destinations in the U.S. and around the world.
10Best Editors
USA TODAY 10Best provides users with original, unbiased and experiential travel coverage of top attractions, things to see and do, and restaurants for top destinations in the U.S. and around the world.
