Sonoma County Harvest Fair
- Dates
- Oct 10, 2026
- Status
- Confirmed
- Venue
- Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa, CA
- Price
- $100
- Camping
- None on site
- Last checked
- Aug 23, 2026
Sonoma County Harvest Fair returns to Santa Rosa, CA, Oct 10, 2026. Froligo tracks current ticket prices, attendee feedback and travel details.
What to eat & drink
You must try…
Crowd favourites and signature dishes are being verified. Check back before you go.
Festival weekend in pictures
The people, producers and atmosphere around the festival.
Watch before you taste
Food tours, crowd favourites and festival highlights.
The experience
What's special
The Sonoma County Harvest Fair has celebrated the region's agricultural and culinary bounty since 1975, built around one of California's premier regional wine judgings, a panel of wine professionals blind-tasting more than 900 wines made entirely from Sonoma County grapes. Its public centerpiece is a Grand Tasting where guests sample the Gold and Best of Class winners from over one hundred local wineries in a single afternoon, paired with bites from area restaurants, an art show, and the World Championship Grape Stomp. In recent years the event has shifted to a dressed-up, one-night gala format built around the live reveal of the Sweepstakes-winning red, white, and sparkling wines
What people love
The draw most consistently highlighted is the once-a-year chance to taste all of the competition's Gold and Best of Class Sonoma County wines side by side in one room, a breadth no single winery visit can match. Coverage frames the gala as a glamorous, celebratory evening, two lounge areas, local-restaurant food, live entertainment, and the buzz of the on-stage Sweepstakes reveal, with a VIP pass offering an earlier, less crowded first hour for those who want a calmer tasting
Last time around (2025)
The most recent held edition was the 50th-anniversary gala on Saturday, October 11, 2025, at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, drawing more than 1,300 attendees. It capped a competition of over 900 Sonoma County wines from 149 wineries, judged by 21 wine professionals, that produced 114 double-gold, 236 gold, and 33 best-of-class medals, with the Sweepstakes winners revealed on the night (Bucher Wines 2023 Three Sixty Pinot Noir for red, Raymond Burr Vineyards 2024 Vermentino for white, Breathless Wines Blanc de Noirs for specialty). Chief wine judge Debra Del Fiorentino called it the best gala in the fair's history; the 2026 edition continues in the one-night Awards Gala format on October 10, 2026
Music & entertainment
Lineup not yet announced. Email me the day it lands.
Getting there
Nearest airport STS.
How do I get to Sonoma County Harvest Fair?
By car
Most people drive to Sonoma County Harvest Fair. The nearest major airport is STS, and from there it is a straightforward drive to the venue. Check current road and traffic conditions before you set off, and see parking below.
By train
SMART rail runs direct from the Sonoma County Airport SMART station to the Santa Rosa Downtown station in about 9-10 minutes, hourly, no transfers. SMART operates an on-demand microtransit shuttle connecting the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS) terminal to the airport rail station. From the Santa Rosa Downtown station it is roughly 1 mile (a short rideshare or ~20-min walk) to the Sonoma County Event Center at the Fairgrounds, the closest thing to a fly-in-to-venue transit route for STS arrivals
Book / info →By bus & public transit
STS is a small regional airport with limited direct service, so many attendees fly into San Francisco (SFO) or Oakland (OAK) instead. Groome Transportation runs a scheduled shared-ride coach between SFO/OAK and Santa Rosa/Petaluma, dropping in Santa Rosa a short rideshare from the Fairgrounds. Listed here as the realistic major-airport alternative to the STS-only options above, noted explicitly rather than silently substituting STS
Book / info →Taxi & rideshare
Uber and Lyft operate at STS and across Santa Rosa. A direct rideshare from STS to the Fairgrounds is roughly a 15-minute drive. At the venue, official rideshare pickup and drop-off is located off Maple Drive in the Median Parking Lot per the fairgrounds' own directions page, important for a wine-tasting event where a designated ride out is the sensible plan
Book / info →Taxis and rideshare such as Uber and Lyft can be limited near the venue, especially late at night or in rural areas. Agree a pickup point and time in advance and keep a backup plan.
🅿 Parking
Cost Fairgrounds event parking is stated as ranging $15-$30 depending on the event and the lot (all-public-event parking is commonly $15).
🚙 Car hire
Compare car hire at STS
Santa Rosa is the gateway to the wider Sonoma wine country, which is spread out and thin on transit, so fly-in attendees pairing the fair with winery visits typically rent a car (major firms are at STS and the SFO/OAK majors). Caveat for this specific event: it is a wine-tasting gala, so a car is best for the surrounding trip while a rideshare/SMART is the sensible way to and from the tasting itself
Search car hire →Live price search coming soon.
Where
Venue
Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa, CA
Camping & Accommodation
Where can I stay near Sonoma County Harvest Fair?
No on site camping. Here is where to stay nearby.
Hotels nearby 4
Airbnb & private camping
Santa Rosa and the surrounding Sonoma wine country have a large short-term-rental supply. The fair falls in mid-October, peak harvest/'crush' season in wine country, so expect elevated nightly rates and strong demand across the county that weekend. Property-level gala-weekend pricing was not collected, so this is a seasonal-pattern note
Search Airbnb →Sonoma County wine country has a deep supply of Hipcamp-listed vineyard stays, private-land camping, and glamping within short driving range of Santa Rosa, a scenic alternative to a hotel for attendees who'll rideshare/SMART into the gala. Separately, the Sonoma County Fairgrounds venue itself operates an on-site RV Park (a venue amenity, NOT festival-run camping, the fair does not offer camping), which RV travellers can book directly through the fairgrounds. No gala-weekend-specific availability was collected
Search Hipcamp →Accessibility & comfort
What the organiser or venue publishes about getting around, and what they do not.
Crawled harvestfair.org on 3 Sep 2026 including its linked info pages. The organiser publishes no accessibility page and nothing on terrain, accessible parking, accessible toilets, companion tickets, ASL or a quiet space
Confirm your specific needs with the organiser's access team before you travel.
Pricing
Price history and tiers
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