Naples Winter Wine Festival Honored as the Nation’s “Best Wine Festival”

The Naples Children & Education Foundation (NCEF), the founding organization of the Naples Winter Wine Festival (NWWF), is proud to announce that USA Today readers across the country have voted the NWWF as the country’s “Best Wine Festival” for 2025, recognizing the Festival with USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Award.

With three days of activities, the NWWF showcases dozens of award-winning chefs and renowned vintners who generously donate their time and talents at intimate wine dinners across Naples, plus an incredible live auction with one-of-a-kind auction lots. The 2025 NWWF raised a record of over $34 million toward NCEF’s mission of transforming the lives of children in need.

“We are just really thrilled and honored to be recognized as the best wine festival in the United States for 2025, which coincided with our 25th anniversary celebration,” said Naples Children & Education Foundation CEO Maria Jimenez-Lara. “We are also deeply grateful to our incredible volunteers, partners, vintners, chefs, supporters and guests who made this recognition possible.”

Since its inaugural event in 2001, the NWWF has raised more than $336 million, making a profound and sustaining difference in the lives of the most vulnerable children in Collier County.

Excitement is already building for the 26th annual Naples Winter Wine Festival from January 30, 2026 through February 1, 2026 at The Ritz-Carlton Naples, Tiburón. This year’s theme “Picture This” is a call to imagine and to believe in what is possible when compassion meets action. The theme challenges Festival supporters, vintners, chefs and donors to picture the impact their generosity can have in creating a world of endless futures for children in our community.

Already announced are the 2026 Honored Vintners Shahpar and Darioush Khaledi, founders of the acclaimed Napa Valley winery Darioush, and Chef de Cuisine Dustin Valette, the Chef-Owner of Valette and The Matheson in Healdsburg, California, and Owner of Valette Wines. Additional celebrity chefs, acclaimed vintners and featured sommeliers will be announced later this summer.