The Harvest Festival Goes Two Days This Year, and Cummings Valley Is Most of the Map

"Enjoy and learn about the wine culture up here," Mike Van Atta told Tehachapi News when the Tehachapi Mountain Wine Growers' Commission announced its first Harvest Festival, held in 2025. He owns Tehachapi Wine & Cattle Company and is also the commission's president. He described the festival as a free event for "the people of the community and beyond."

"Up here" mostly means Cummings Valley. If you live along Cummings Valley Road, Highway 202, or in Fairview Ranches, most of the festival map is your own neighborhood. And this year the festival runs two days, Saturday, Oct. 24, and Sunday, Oct. 25.

The festival map is mostly the valley

The Tehachapi News wine venue guide says five vineyards with tasting rooms are in Cummings Valley, near Bear Valley Springs and Stallion Springs and about 10 miles west of the city of Tehachapi. The one tasting room that's downtown is Stray Leaves, on South Green Street, which pours wine from grapes grown southwest of the city.

Here's where the guide places each venue:

Two of these sit on Cummings Valley Road itself, about two thousand address numbers apart. Visitors coming from Bakersfield or Los Angeles have to drive in to reach any of them. If you already live in the valley, you're closer to more festival stops than almost anyone else in Kern County.

All of this has grown in a little over two decades. Bob and Patty Souza started Souza Family Vineyard in 2003. It was the first commercial vineyard and tasting room in the Tehachapi Mountains, and the vineyards on this map came after it. The Loop Newspaper reports that the Souza property is now Tehachapi Wine & Cattle Company, owned and run by Mike Van Atta and Beth Hamilton. In late 2020 the area was designated the Tehachapi Mountains American Viticultural Area. Wine that carries that name must use at least 85% grapes grown in the area.

Last year's festival ran while the grapes were coming in

The first festival was on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, from noon to 6 p.m., with six participants. The Loop listed them as Tehachapi Wine & Cattle Company, Dorner Family Vineyard, Tehachapi Winery, Rancho de Los Viajeros, Triassic Vineyards and Stray Leaves Vineyard.

Tehachapi News reported afterward that Rancho de Los Viajeros was still harvesting during the festival. Greater Tehachapi Chamber of Commerce President Clare Scotti and Tehachapi Tourism Commission President Chris Scotti helped pour wine because much of the staff was out bringing in grapes. Owner Ilda Vaja set up an old-fashioned slot machine where a 777 won a free bottle.

The same report covered the other stops:

• Tehachapi Winery drew a big crowd for the Bakersfield band Lipstick Revolver. Owner Mike Chan called it "kind of overwhelming."
• Dorner Family Vineyard had long lines all day, with local band FLASHBACK playing.
• Triassic Vineyards hosted vendors, including MADD Bakery co-owner Darin Dresser selling cookies.
• Tehachapi Wine & Cattle Company offered carriage rides, had California musician Steve Hill playing, and welcomed 28 horseback riders who arrived early.

Those 28 riders came on horseback to a tasting room on Cummings Valley Road, and the festival was set up to welcome them. Tehachapi News reported that the commission hoped to make the festival a regular event.

Year two adds a day, and this year's harvest started early

They did continue it. A Tehachapi News visitor guide says the commission's 2025 festival "will be expanded to two days in October of this year." The Loop's Oct. 10, 2026 Autumn Event Calendar lists a Dorner Family Vineyard Harvest Festival on Oct. 24 and 25, noon to 6 p.m., with free admission. Dorner is offering live music, artisan vendors, fall food, mulled wine and photo spots, and the listing says the event is "held in conjunction with Tehachapi Mountains AVA tasting rooms."

The calendar date is new, and so is the timing of the grapes. Saar Family Vineyard, which makes wine under the Hochland Wines name, wrote in its fall newsletter that its second estate harvest is already underway. Warm weather in late August and early September sped up ripening, so picking of some varieties started in late September. The vineyard sits at roughly 4,000 feet and gets warm days, cool nights and what the newsletter calls "the afternoon winds characteristic of Cummings Valley."

In 2025, harvest at Rancho de Los Viajeros overlapped festival day. In 2026, at least one Cummings Valley vineyard was picking a month before the festival. Both years, the festival weekend falls in the middle of harvest season.

A new vineyard opens its gate for the weekend

The new name on the festival map is Hochland. The vineyard picked 10.5 tons of grapes in its first harvest in October 2025. Its first estate wine was a Mountain Rosé, made from 100% Grenache in a Provence style and released this spring. It sold out and won a silver medal at the Peninsula Underground Wine Competition for small-batch wineries.

The family saved a few cases of that 2025 vintage. They plan to pour it at a pop-up at the Hochland Wines vineyard during the Harvest Festival on Oct. 24 and 25. The vineyard doesn't have a tasting room yet. The newsletter says the family is "continuing to work through the permits and requirements" for one, and that the festival gives them a chance to welcome visitors in the meantime.

That makes the festival weekend the scheduled public pour of a sold-out first vintage at a Cummings Valley vineyard you can't otherwise visit. The "what grows in Tehachapi" visitor guide names Saar as the next vineyard planning a tasting room of its own.

Planning the weekend from inside the valley

The organizers had published two confirmed stops by mid-October, the Dorner listing and the Hochland pop-up. Other tasting rooms took part in 2025 and are also part of the AVA, but last year's lineup and activities don't guarantee this year's. The wine venue guide says hours vary for every venue and suggests calling or checking each winery's website before you go.

Here's how the weekend lays out, based on what's on record:

1. Start with the confirmed host. Dorner Family Vineyard on Old Ranch Road is running festival programming both days from noon to 6 p.m.
2. Look for the Hochland pop-up. It's the only festival stop pouring the 2025 Mountain Rosé, and the newsletter says only a few cases were saved.
3. Plan around the Cummings Valley Road pair. Tehachapi Wine & Cattle Company says it has live music every weekend and an in-house kitchen. Triassic Vineyards' website says it's open most Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m., with most weekend music from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.
4. Check Highway 202 and Bailey Road directly. Rancho de Los Viajeros and Tehachapi Winery both drew crowds in 2025. Call ahead to find out what they're doing this year.

Some venues also host overnight guests. Dorner has added guest villas, Rancho de Los Viajeros offers guest rooms, and Harvest Hosts lists RV stays at some Tehachapi vineyards. That's useful if relatives are coming up from the valley floor for the weekend.

The second day changes the most for people who live here. In 2025, everything happened in one Saturday afternoon. This year, Sunday is an option too, and the Loop listing confirms the same noon-to-6 window both days.

We've spent years walking Cummings Valley parcels with sellers and buyers, and harvest weekend is one of the best times to see how much of the valley is working farmland. If you own land along Cummings Valley Road or in Fairview Ranches and have been wondering what it's worth in this wine country, Theresa Mann & Co is happy to talk it through over coffee. Book a Consultation.