Femme Fete is a women’s wine festival that took place in Boston during the last weekend of February 2026. While I did not get tickets to the event before it sold out (I’m still not over it), the days leading up to and after the Grand Tasting included multiple wine dinners, free tastings, and BTG events throughout the Greater Boston Area. I was off of work for many of the events and spent a few days popping around town tasting wine from amazing winemakers!
Of note, the festival was founded by Haley Fortier, who owns haley.henry and nathálie wine bars in Boston. Check them out when you’re in town!
Here are my top five wines from the week (in the order I tasted them):
The first event I went to was with Champagne Barrat Masson at Bubble Bath in Back Bay. Aurelie, the winemaker, is an oenologist by training and helped to convert her husband’s family’s estate to an organic farm in 2005, with their first wines being released in 2011.
My favorite wine of the night was the Grain D’Argile. This NV is 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Chardonnay. There were notes of pear and white peach, and the bubbles were so delicate, airy, and refreshing. While I tend to prefer Blanc de Blancs, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I wanted to keep drinking this.
I love pink wine – I am constantly looking to bring vacation, poolside vibes to my life due to the intensity of my day job and rosé is a fun and delicioius way for me to do so. Martha Stroumen’s Post Flirtation Pink gave me everything I look for in such a wine – it was packed with so much flavor, had high acidity, and paired perfectly with summer foods. The wine brings flavors of watermelon, cucumber, and strawberry with salinity on both the nose and palate. The wine is composed of 75% Nero d’Avola and 25% Vermentino. I paired this with fries (top notch poolside snack) but I plan to drink future bottles with jicama, cucumber, and mango topped with tajin or sal de gusano. Interestingly, the Nero d’Avola vines are dry farmed (no irrigation is used), which I think we will see more of as (parts of) the wine industry moves toward more sustainable practices.
I went to Terah Wine Co’s tasting where I met the winemaker – Terah Bajjalieh and learned so much about her winemaking processes and decisions. Her 2024 Vino Rosso consists of 95% sangiovese and 5% falanghina using carbonic maceration to bring out the fruity notes. Back to what I said above, I love wine that reminds me of vacation and being by the pool – this Vino Rosso is chillable and reminds me of Labor Day Weekend vibes. There is ample red fruit on the palate including strawberry, red cherry, pomegranate and undertones of white pepper. I would drink this wine with arancini, a burrata salad, or BBQ kettle chips.
Domaine La Garagista is a farm and winery based out of Vermont. They grow hybrid grapes created for cold climates and make wine with these aforementioned grapes as well as grapes from nearby farms. If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you’ll see that I have an affinity for hybrid grapes. I tasted four different wines and my favorite was Fields Studies 2024 – this is a wine made from 100% Brianna which is a hybrid from the 1980s that was cultivated in Wisconsin. Despite being grown in such a cold climate, Field Studies has tropical notes on both the nose and palate: lychee, pineapple, guava, and passionfruit with underlying salinity. I would love to have this wine with a goat cheese and beet salad, or fried squash blossoms filled with cheese.
Last but definitely not least, I went to a Women’s Wine dinner at Oleana which was a dream. We had five courses paired with wines, two of them coming from Château du Grand Bos. The winemaker, Lou Rochet has degrees in oenology and chemistry and has been working as the winemaker for the château in 2017.
The 2021 Spinoza is a blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon. There are notes of honeycomb, pear,and apple. It was paired with bass over a bed of spiced lentils and it was delicious. I loved how the roundness of the semillon complemented the diverse spice profile of the lentils and I would pair this with foods such as peanut stew, curry, or a stir-fried noodle in the future.
I’m looking forward to next year’s Femme Fete, and actually attending the Grand Tasting. Follow the festival’s instagram if you want to keep an eye out for future events!
Happy Women’s History Month! Who are some women winemakers that you love?
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