The Kapalua Wine and Food Festival closes each June on a walkabout Grand Tasting Gala in the Aloha Garden Pavilion at The Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua, where hundreds of rare and hard-to-find wines are poured beside dishes from Maui's best-loved restaurants. Founded in 1981, it is the longest-running wine and food festival in the country, and its 45th edition in 2026 brought more than 1,500 attendees and guests from around the globe to four days of seminars, chef luncheons and winemaker dinners. The crowd travels to be there: 60% of 2026 guests came from the mainland and international destinations. The festival describes them as culinary and wine enthusiasts, luxury resort travelers and brand aficionados, sharing the weekend with top food and wine purveyors and national brands. Kapalua Resort, 22,000 acres on Maui, is known for drawing a highly affluent guest base. Press carries the weekend well past Maui. In 2025 the festival secured 32 media placements worth 61,820,841 impressions and $577,210 in ad value, and hosted four influencers. Past media attendees include Forbes, Wine Spectator, Robb Report, Wine Enthusiast and Conde Nast Traveler, and USA Today readers voted it the best food and wine festival in the U.S. in 2020. Brands come back. In 2026 Southwest Airlines sponsored the Grand Tasting Gala, The Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua was host hotel, Petrossian served caviar, Whispering Angel poured a pickleball round robin and Death and Co ran a mixology pop-up, alongside Hawaii Tourism Authority, Suntory, FIJI Water, Peroni, Fever-Tree and Moet Hennessy. Kelly Knox of Southwest Airlines: "We've been able to grow awareness of our brand through pre-event digital assets and creative on-site activations." Proceeds support the University of Hawaii Maui College culinary arts program. Partnerships are built around what a brand needs. The rights on offer here are product sampling to guests, branded signage and exhibits, a custom-built brand activation, coupon and sample distribution, a sweepstakes, category exclusivity, merchandise presence, trade programming, an event-day digital package, VIP hospitality and product integration in festival content.