Events and festivals in Centre-Val de Loire on September 26-27, 2026: the grape harvest festival in Sancerre draws nearly 4,000 people, alongside organ concerts at Bourges cathedral and a symphonic bike tour through the Brenne.
The last big weekend of September in the Loire Valley (26-27/09). In Sancerre, in the Cher department, the Tour des Fiefs watches over the vineyards this Friday and Saturday. Events and festivals in Centre-Val de Loire on September 26-27, 2026: the grape harvest festival in Sancerre draws nearly 4,000 people, alongside organ concerts at Bourges cathedral and a symphonic bike tour through the Brenne.
The grape harvest at the Tour des Fiefs
The Festivendanges open this Friday, September 25, in Sancerre, in the Cher department, for two days of open-air concerts. The association Un Piment dans le Loukoum is behind this music festival.
The event celebrates the grape harvest season in this winegrowing town. It has returned every year since 2014, always on the last weekend of September, this year the 26th and 27th.
Close to 4,000 people gather for each edition, around the Tour des Fiefs. The concerts take place on Place du Connétable, in the heart of Sancerre's old town.
The music programme stays eclectic across the two evenings. The festival closes this Saturday, September 26, its second and final day this year.
The rest of the weekend
At Bourges' Saint-Étienne cathedral, Les Très Riches Heures de l'Orgue en Berry gives its last narrated Sunday organ concert of the season this Sunday, a series running since 1986. In Cloyes-les-Trois-Rivières, the Romantic Festival of the Loir closes ten days of chamber music across heritage sites of the Loir valley, priories and churches among them, led by artistic director Jean-Paul Ouvrard, founded in 2015.
In the Indre department, the Jazz en Berry festival wraps up its season this Saturday in Châteauroux, heir to the city's first Jazz Club, founded in 1966, with a programme running from swing to be-bop, by way of gypsy jazz and blues. In the Brenne regional nature park, the Forces Majeures symphonic tour crosses villages by bicycle, instruments and equipment towed on trailers. Founded by cellist and conductor Raphaël Merlin, it ends with a closing concert in a large hall.
Also in the Indre, En Campagne wraps up its tour of around ten rural communes this Sunday, run by Équinoxe, Châteauroux's national theatre, with free dance, music and circus shows, followed by shared moments with the audience. In Vatan, the Temps Fort du Collectif Compagnies 36 brings together some twenty professional companies this Friday and Saturday, showing works both finished and still in progress, alongside workshops open to the public.
In Loir-et-Cher, in Courbouzon, The World's Smallest International Gastronomy Festival brings together shows, readings and food events this Friday and Saturday, run by the Compagnie La Valise Ondulatoire, as a nod to Rabelais and to feasting in Centre-Val de Loire. In the Indre, in Lignac, the Saint-Michel festival sets up its flea market this Sunday, from 9am to 5pm, at the foot of a castle founded by Guillaume X, Duke of Aquitaine. In Chartres, Chartres en Lumières, launched in 2003 and run by the city of Chartres, lights up around twenty sites across the town centre every evening, from nightfall until one in the morning.