★ Wine Paris

01Why it matters

A decade ago the international wine trade's February was split between Düsseldorf and a handful of national shows, and Bordeaux's own Vinexpo was the biennial event everyone flew to. Wine Paris absorbed most of that traffic in under ten years, and the consolidation is now done: if you sell wine internationally, this is the week you are expected to be in a room. In our reading the significant thing about Wine Paris is not its size but its structure — by giving no-alcohol its own hall next to spirits and wine, the organizer has built the trade's shifting priorities into the floor plan, which is a more honest statement of where the category is going than any conference panel. For the reader of a social calendar, the useful fact is the opposite one: this is a working fair, it is closed to the public, and what spills out of it into Paris is business dinners.

02The week around it

Porte de Versailles is in the 15th arrondissement, a long way in character from the Paris a visitor comes for, and the fair's effect on the city is concentrated in two places: the hotels of the 15th and 7th arrondissements, and the restaurants, which fill with trade dinners for three nights. February is otherwise a quiet month in Paris, so the pressure is specific and manageable. The Métro line 12 runs directly to the venue and is the bottleneck at nine in the morning and six in the evening.

03When to arrive

Sunday evening, to be on the floor when it opens at nine on the Monday. Three full days on a fair floor of this size is genuinely tiring and the Wednesday closes early at five, which makes a Wednesday evening departure workable. Anyone combining the fair with appointments in Champagne or Burgundy should add the Thursday and Friday rather than trying to do it around the show.

04Where to stay

The 15th arrondissement around Porte de Versailles and Convention is the practical base and the least interesting, with a good supply of business hotels within walking distance of the halls. Montparnasse and the 7th are a short Métro ride and better places to spend an evening. The central districts — Saint-Germain, the Marais, the 1st and 2nd — are twenty-five to thirty-five minutes each way but are where most of the trade dinners happen, which is the argument for staying there and commuting to the fair.

05Access and hospitality

This is a professional event. Entry is by trade badge obtained through the organizer's registration system, and the general public is not admitted on any day. The organizer does not publish a badge price on the pages we read and none is quoted here. Exhibiting is by booking a stand, handled through the organizer. The programme of masterclasses, tastings and conference sessions is included within the trade badge, and the appointment system that logged almost 26,000 meetings in the last edition is opened to registered visitors in advance. Press accreditation runs through Vinexposium's media channel.

06Where the social activity happens

Not at Porte de Versailles, which empties at closing time. The fair's social life is in central Paris over three evenings: the bistros and wine bars of the 11th and the 2nd, the restaurants around Saint-Germain, and the hotel bars where importers and producers reconvene. Vinexposium runs its own programme of bars and restaurants inside the halls for the working day. None of the evening activity is public programming; it is several thousand separate dinners.

07Getting there

08Practicalities

09History

Wine Paris was launched in 2019 by the Comité Champagne's and the French trade's exhibition interests as a Paris counterweight to the established international fairs, and its growth was immediate. In 2020 it merged with Vinexpo, the long-established Bordeaux fair, and ran for several years as Wine Paris & Vinexpo Paris under the combined promoter Vinexposium. The Vinexpo name has since been redeployed to the group's events outside France — Asia in Hong Kong, Americas in Miami, plus Explorer and an Indian edition — and the Paris show is now branded simply Wine Paris. The 2026 edition introduced the three-hall format, renaming the no-alcohol event The Other Sip.

10Who is there

Importers, distributors and agents, who are the reason the fair exists; wine and spirits producers from across the world on their own or collective stands; hotel, restaurant and retail buyers; sommeliers and bartenders; trade press and analysts; and the national and regional promotion bodies that take collective pavilions. No consumers.