Overview The Louisiana Food and Wine Festival is four days of tastings in Lake Charles, and its Friday is Fire on the Lake: pitmasters and chefs cook slow-smoked and grilled meats and Louisiana seafood over live fire in Bord du Lac Park. Around it run a judged chef competition, a Saturday Grand Tasting and a Sunday jazz brunch, built on Cajun and Creole cooking and on wines, beers and spirits from around the world. Every event is all-inclusive, and all but the brunch are 21 and over. Visit Lake Charles hosts the festival, and the AdFish Group produces it; AdFish also created the Savannah Food and Wine Festival and runs the St. Augustine Food + Wine Festival and Whiskey, Wine and Wildlife in Florida. On site Thursday is Louisiana's Best Taste Awards at L'Auberge Casino Resort, a walk-around of dishes from chefs across the state and region, professionally judged, with beverage tastings and live music. Friday moves outdoors to Fire on the Lake. The Grand Tasting takes Bord du Lac Park on Saturday afternoon with tastings, cooking demonstrations and a band, and VIP ticket holders get in an hour early; in 2026 it also ran a Wine and Whiskey Pull for the Imperial Calcasieu Museum. The weekend closes with two seatings of Sunday Jazz Brunch at Ember Grille and Wine Bar inside L'Auberge, where The Sharp 9's played in 2026. Audience Half the guests book a hotel for the festival. After out-of-town Louisianans, they come from Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. Two of the four events are held inside L'Auberge Casino Resort, one of the city's three casino resorts with Golden Nugget and Horseshoe. Track record The AdFish Group and its Culinary Communities Foundation have raised more than $600,000 for nonprofits through their festivals, and the foundation has funded culinary scholarships in Lake Charles and St. Augustine. SOWELA Technical Community College was the official charity partner for 2026. Brand presence A title sponsor's name becomes part of the festival's name, with its logo locked up with the festival's in every ad, and it takes the largest hospitality pavilion, roughly 20 by 40 feet, at the Friday and Saturday events. Pavilions scale down to 10 by 10 at lower levels. Each event can be named for one corporate, one media and one beverage partner. Marketing starts six months out, with local TV and radio partners running PSAs from three months out and paid spots in the final month, and the festival's monthly newsletter goes to a shared list of about 45,000.