September is when the New York wine calendar stops fooling around. The patio-sipping season fades into something more serious: harvest is weeks away, festival tents are going up, and the city’s best new rooms are pouring with intent. Whether you want a weekend pilgrimage to a 25-year-old festival in Rhinebeck, a first look at the big mid-October tasting extravaganza downtown, or a quiet night at one of three just-opened bars where wine and sake share a list, this month delivers.
Here is your September wine playbook for NYC drinkers, from the Hudson Valley to the Seaport to a few Soho corners you haven’t hit yet.
The Hudson Valley Wine & Food Festival Turns 25 (September 12–13)
The single best wine weekend within two hours of the city celebrates a milestone this year. The Hudson Valley Wine & Food Festival marks its 25th anniversary on September 12–13 at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, and the organizers have packed the grounds with New York’s wineries, distilleries, cideries, breweries, chefs, and specialty-food makers — all within strolling distance of each other.
This is not a quick lap around a few tasting tables. It is a full weekend built for people who want to find out what is actually in the glass, meet the people behind it, and leave with a new bottle obsession. Expect Finger Lakes Rieslings and Cabernet Francs, Hudson Valley growers, Long Island sparklers, and plenty of local cider and craft spirits to round out the pour. General admission runs roughly $10–$85 depending on the tier, with hours from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday at 6636 Route 9.
Getting there: It’s an easy drive up the Taconic or the Thruway, and the Amtrak/Metro-North option to Rhinecliff plus a short ride makes it a viable day trip — though the true move is booking a room and doing the full weekend. Late-September foliage previews make the drive back almost as good as the tasting.
NYCWFF Returns to the Seaport, October 15–18
The big one is coming back. The NYC Wine & Food Festival returns to Lower Manhattan’s Seaport district October 15–18, and the 2026 lineup is already stacked. Chef Nobu Matsuhisa headlines with “A Culinary Journey Through Peru,” exploring the region’s culinary traditions, while Maneet Chauhan and Vijay Kumar host “Flavors of Bollywood,” an evening built on bold spices and cultural storytelling.
Beyond the chef-driven events, expect the festival’s usual mix: large-scale tastings, signature parties, intimate hosted dinners, and culinary demonstrations, all supporting charitable causes — the event’s mission since it launched nearly two decades ago. Tickets for marquee dinners and the Grand Tasting sell quickly once the full schedule drops, so set a reminder and check early if you want the premium pours. For the wine-obsessed, the festival is also the rare place to taste dozens of producers side by side in one weekend without leaving Manhattan.
Three New Rooms Where Wine Meets Sake (and Everything Else)
NYC’s most interesting new drinking destinations are refusing to pick a lane. The wine-and-sake crossover bar has become the city’s defining format of 2026, and three newcomers do it beautifully.
Noury (137 Sullivan Street, Soho)
From Lina Goujjane and Alex Chang, the husband-and-wife team behind Hudson Square’s Kiko, Noury mashes a modern Japanese izakaya together with a wine-and-sake bar — and the hybrid works. Pair a daily sashimi selection or house vegetable futomaki with a rare bottle of sake or a splurge-worthy Champagne. The list rewards curiosity: ask the team what they’re pouring by the glass and you’ll get a masterclass in food-friendly pairings.
Somssi (79 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village)
Somssi comes from NA:EUN Hospitality, the group behind Atoboy, Atomix, and NARO, and it brings that pedigree to a shareable, wine-friendly menu. Between the plates and a beverage list that spans wine, sake, and cocktails, the pairing permutations are nearly endless. The dish people keep talking about — “Potato, Potato, Potato” with caviar, a creamy purée wrapped in crispy potato threads — is begging for a Finger Lakes sparkling or a spritzy, gently petillant sake.
Dean’s (213 Sixth Avenue, West Village)
And for the Anglophile in your group: Dean’s, the British pub-inspired spot from Jess Shadbolt and Annie Shi of King, pours a serious list of English sparkling wine alongside fish and chips, stargazy pie, and pork scratchings. English bubbles — from Sussex and Kent producers who have spent a decade proving they can hang with Champagne — are having a real NYC moment, and a chilled glass with a half-dozen oysters is a perfect transition-season order.
Why Wine Bars Are Going Bicultural
This wave isn’t random. Sake sales have climbed steadily in New York, sommeliers have gotten serious about sake credentials, and diners have realized that sake’s umami-driven profile pairs with everything from raw bar to fried food in ways that white wine sometimes can’t. So the smartest bar teams stopped treating sake as a separate menu and started interleaving it with grower Champagne, skin-contact white, and chillable red. The result — Noury, Somssi, and a dozen others — is a list where you order by flavor and mood, not by country of origin.
The same logic is pushing English sparkling and Finger Lakes sparkling onto more by-the-glass lists: bubbles with texture, at prices that make Tuesday feel like a celebration.
Plan Your September
If you only do one thing, do the Hudson Valley Wine & Food Festival this weekend — 25 years is a milestone worth toasting, and Rhinebeck in mid-September is peak Hudson Valley. If you can’t get out of town, mark October 15–18 for NYCWFF at the Seaport and grab tickets when the schedule drops. And on any given weeknight, let the new wine-and-sake rooms — Noury in Soho, Somssi in the Village, Dean’s for English bubbles — show you what the rest of the season will taste like.
September in NYC wine is a two-front season: the country and the city are both pouring at full strength. Drink accordingly. Cheers.