National Red Wine Day 2026: Freebies, deals, tastings, and ways to celebrate

Summer is winding down, so what better way to celebrate than with some wine. As the temperatures cool, it is especially appropriate to transition from white to red. Today (August 28, 2026) marks National Red Wine Day, so there’s no time like the present. Let’s learn some fun facts about wine before we delve into where to get pours that won’t make you poor. How is wine made? Winemaking seems deceptively simple on paper, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy undertaking. The core ingredients are grapes and yeast, but a thousand decisions have to be made along the way: When to harvest the grapes, how to sort them, how to crush them, and if you should add additional yeasts and sulfites are just some of the questions that winemakers have to answer during the process. After the grapes are harvested and crushed, the yeast feeds on the juice. This creates ethanol and carbon dioxide gas. To make white wine, the skins are typically removed from the juice right away. Red wine gets its color from skin contact. Who invented wine? The truth is no one really knows. The leading theory historians believe is that wine was one of those happy accident inventions. Early humans were nomadic and would gath…