Jazz & Wine of Peace
Jazz & Wine of Peace spreads contemporary jazz through Cormòns and the Collio, placing concerts in theatres, wineries, historic houses and other venues across the Italian-Slovenian borderlands. The festival was built around the idea of the border as a meeting point rather than a division, pairing international musicians with a landscape shaped by vineyards and wine culture. The 2026 edition runs from October 22–25, with Cormòns at its center and programming extending into the surrounding Collio.
Le Calli di Bacco
For three autumn days, the calli and campielli of Grado’s historic center become a route through the region’s food and wine culture. Tastings, themed itineraries, meetings and entertainment bring producers, restaurateurs and visitors together across the old town, with particular attention to the relationship between Grado, its lagoon, the culture of the sea and the wines of Friuli Venezia Giulia. Returning for its second edition in 2026, the event is designed to be experienced on foot, moving through the historic center rather than gathering everything in a single venue.
Katschberger Winzerfest mit Almtörggelen & Ganslessen
t the end of October, Katschberg closes the autumn season with a two-day wine festival at the Almwirtshaus Ainkehr. The event combines regional wine with Almtörggelen, hearty mountain food and seasonal goose dishes, bringing together two Alpine autumn traditions in a high-elevation setting between Carinthia and Salzburg. It is smaller in scale than the major city festivals elsewhere in the calendar, but precisely for that reason it gives the month a more local and seasonal counterpoint.
The Wine Festival in Štanjel
As the Karst vineyards turn red and gold, Štanjel marks the close of the wine season with four days devoted to local wine and food. Tastings are joined by Karst cheeses, cured meats, prosciutto and regional dishes, with additional cultural and entertainment programming throughout the medieval hill village. The setting matters as much as the program: stone lanes, courtyards and the compact historic fabric of Štanjel turn the event into an autumn portrait of the Karst rather than a conventional indoor wine fair.
Cantine Aperte a San Martino
For St. Martin’s weekend, wineries across Friuli Venezia Giulia open their cellars for tastings, visits and seasonal food-and-wine experiences. The timing comes just after the harvest, when the region traditionally turns its attention from must toward the new wine. Participating estates range across FVG, with many offering lunches or dinners with the winemaker as well as cellar visits. It is less a single festival than a regional invitation into the vineyards and wineries at one of the most characteristic moments of the wine year.
St. Martin’s Festival in Šmartno
St. Martin’s weekend brings Brda’s young-wine season into the fortified village of Šmartno. Local winemakers open tastings, stalls offer regional food and artisan products, and concerts, workshops and cultural performances fill the stone lanes and small squares. The celebration is rooted in the traditional moment when must becomes wine, but its scale remains closely tied to the village itself, giving visitors a direct encounter with Brda’s wine culture, food traditions and autumn landscape.
23rd Persimmon Festival Strunjan
Strunjan’s annual persimmon festival celebrates one of Slovenian Istria’s most distinctive late-autumn crops. Fresh fruit and persimmon-based dishes are joined by a local market, workshops on cultivation and use, guided visits to the Strunjan salt pans, exhibitions and an evening cultural program. The festival’s appeal lies in its specificity: rather than a generic harvest fair, it connects a single fruit to the agricultural landscape, coastal climate and food traditions of the northern Adriatic.
Farine di Flôr / Formandi
Sutrio's autumn food festival looks closely at two foundations of Carnic mountain cooking: grain and cheese. Farine di Flôr and Formandi bring producers, cooks and visitors into the village for tastings and presentations built around local flours, breads, cheeses, beer and other mountain products. Its appeal lies in tracing ingredients back into the agricultural and dairy traditions of Carnia, with the streets of Sutrio providing the setting.
Alpen-Adria Genussmeile
The Alpen-Adria Genussmeile brings producers from Austria, Italy and Slovenia into Klagenfurt’s historic center for three days of tasting and regional exchange. Around 46 exhibitors gather between Ossiacher Hof, Alter Platz and Neuer Platz, with olive oils, cheeses, truffles, wild herbs, wines, organic meats, sweets and coffee among the products represented. As the culminating public event of the wider Tage der Alpen-Adria Küche, it makes the region’s cross-border food culture unusually tangible, bringing Carinthia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Goriška Brda and neighboring areas together at street level.
Vipavska trgatev
Vipavska trgatev marks the grape harvest season in the Vipava Valley with four days of wine, food, music, exhibitions and local markets. Known locally as b’ndima, the harvest brings the valley’s vineyards and cellars into their busiest period of the year, and the festival turns that agricultural moment into a public gathering in Vipava. The 2026 program includes a wine fair, farmers’ market, children’s activities, exhibitions and cultural events, with much of the activity centered around Lanthieri Park.
Friuli DOC
Friuli DOC spreads across central Udine for four days devoted to the food, wine and agricultural traditions of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The program moves among city squares, courtyards and streets, with tastings, regional producers, workshops and performances alongside familiar products such as San Daniele prosciutto, Montasio, gubana and Friulian wines. The festival unfolds through Udine rather than being contained within a fairground, making the city itself part of the experience.
Tage der Alpen-Adria Küche
For more than two weeks, Klagenfurt's Tage der Alpen-Adria Küche places the city's food culture within the wider territory around it. Visiting chefs, producers, restaurants and special events draw connections among Carinthia, Slovenia and northeastern Italy through dinners, tastings and market gatherings. Rather than presenting Alpine-Adriatic cooking as a single cuisine, the festival is most interesting when neighboring traditions, ingredients and techniques sit beside one another across the city.