Tri-Cities Wine Festival gets a lifeline. It’s demise after 40+ years was announced last week

The Tri-Cities Wine Festival will make a return, just a week after organizers announced the end of its run of 40+ years.

The Three Rivers Convention Center said that it will take the reins of the festival that has been held at the center for the past 10 years.

The Tri-Cities Wine Society announced Aug. 30 that it would be permanently shutting down the event after 30 years of running it.

This year’s festival will remain canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but a news release said the convention center plans to hold the next wine festival in November 2022.

“In the spirit of keeping tradition alive, the Three Rivers Convention Center will continue to bring the Tri-Cities Wine Festival to the community and the Great Northwest,” wrote Andy See, director of marketing for the convention center.

See could not be reached Tuesday about the announcement.

The event featuring wines from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana brought more than 1,000 people to the Tri-Cities to savor sips of what the Northwest wine industry has to offer.

The wine fest was started in 1979 by Coke Roth, a Tri-City attorney and past president of the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau — now Visit Tri-Cities — and his friend, Maury Balcom.

It began as a fundraiser to buy a copier for the bureau, and as a way to promote the region’s wines and the Tri-Cities as a tourist destination.

Ten years later, the Tri-Cities Wine Society took it over.

The Tri-Cities Wine Society will continue to have monthly wine tasting events as COVID allows and remain active as a nonprofit.