The Grapes of Wrath

April 24, 2025

The Nantucket Wine & Food Festival returns this May, but it almost didn't happen.

Written by Brian Bushard

Photography By Kit Noble

When a hostile takeover attempt threw the future of the Nantucket Wine & Food Festival into jeopardy last year, there came a point when Nancy Bean thought the festival she had run for nearly two decades might not return. She worried the hours of planning and coordination she had already put in for the 2025 festival might all be for nothing—and she thought she would be out of a job. When a partial settlement put a stop to that takeover last fall—for the time being—Bean said the first thing she felt was tremendous relief.

“My whole livelihood almost got taken away from me,” she said, reflecting on the attempt by a Boston-area wine and liquor company to replace the festival. “I’m really proud that I stuck with this and that it’s happening. All of the insane amount of triple-time work that we had to do to catch up and make it happen is so worth it. It’s so worth it, and it’s our honor to be able to do it.”

The Wine & Food Festival has become a springtime Nantucket staple since its first iteration in 1996, a series of elaborate events and grand tastings with Champagne, rosé, hors d’oeuvres, purveyed meats and artisanal cheeses. The scene has become well-known on Nantucket: chefs prepare oysters and caviar, while winemakers boast some of the finest bottles from around the world.

But just one month after the last glass of wine was poured at the2024 festival, the event’s future was suddenly cast into doubt. Bean heard about it through a series of email blasts and social media posts from Waltham-based Gordon’s Fine Wine & Liquors. Those emails and posts claimed Gordon’s had purchased Bean’s long-running festival. The company also claimed it had struck a deal with the White Elephant and would rebrand the event as the Nantucket Food and Wine Experience. That was all news to Bean.

Gordon’s later clarified it had not purchased the event but instead would launch a separate Wine Experience over the same week in May as the Nantucket Wine & Food Festival. Bean took Gordon’s and the White Elephant to court, and in November, she reached a partial settlement with the White Elephant preventing the hotel from conducting any event with Gordon’s in May 2025 or 2026. The settlement preserves all claims against Gordon’s.

“When things did go in my favor, we had been at a point where there was going to be no festival if something didn’t happen, and luckily we had an injunctive hearing that expedited things,” Bean said. Bean announced less than two weeks after the injunctive hearing in November that the festival would return in 2025—with a new home base at The Nantucket Hotel, and tastings and other events at Bartlett’s Ocean View Farm and the Sconset Casino.

“I am incredibly proud,” she said. “I have three daughters, so what’s the message going to be, that you’re going to back down because it’s too hard to keep fighting and it’s too expensive? I am very proud and I also am honored that so many people helped me and believed in it because it was really hard.”

The Nantucket Wine Festival was founded in 1996 by Denis Toner, a longtime Nantucket seasonal resident. Bean began her tenure in 2007 as the director of operations, and in 2012, Toner sold the festival to Bean and her then-business partner Mark Goldweitz. Since then, Bean has become the sole owner of the festival—acquiring it for approximately $1 million, according to the lawsuit—and rebranded it as the Nantucket Wine & Food Festival. These days, the festival draws over 4,000 visitors annually, according to Bean.

While there will be several new venues this year, Bean said the spirit of the festival will remain the same. There are still the wines from around the world, as well as dinners and hors d’oeuvres that celebrate the cuisines of multiple countries, along with some of the best food Nantucket has to offer. The winemakers who travel to Nantucket come from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Austria and Hungary.

And this year, there is a spotlight on pinot noir from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, with a luncheon at the Nantucket Inn. Other tastings take place at American Seasons, The Nantucket Hotel, private residences and Bartlett’s Farm. “What’s exciting about Bartlett’s is it’s a stunning location,” Bean said. “We’re all about food, which brings us back to agriculture and farming. It’s such a beautiful location for all of these tasting events to take place, and it makes sense. We can also spread out a bit more. We’re not confined to a small space.”

The festival also returns to the Siasconset Casino for the first time in over two decades, with events including a Judgment of Paris wine tasting and the festival’s La Fete, a high-end dinner in a venue Bean lauds as “stunning.” “For the consumer, it’s going to be exciting because there are some new things, and some things have been reimagined,” Bean said. “For those who had heard about [the festival] and never come, it’s going to be just what they thought, and for those who have come before, it’s going to be every bit as good as it’s always been. We have a lot more to do.”