A steady afternoon rainstorm did little to bottle up the spirits of more than 2,000 people who turned out to sample Virginia wines and beers during the Suffolk Wine Festival on Saturday.

By all accounts, Suffolk’s first wine festival was a hit.

“It was a great success,” said Margie Wiley, a member of the Suffolk Business Women organization, which hosted the event on the site of the old Tidewater Community College in North Suffolk.

“I don’t think the rain was too much of a hindrance,” she added. “Because it was our first year, it gave us a chance to learn.”

Umbrellas and ponchos proliferated around the grounds of the festival, outnumbered, perhaps, only by the wine and beer glasses participants were given as they entered the gates.

Ticketholders walked from one tent to the next, sampling a huge variety of wines and beers from 11 Virginia wineries and six Virginia craft breweries.

Featured wineries included Chatham Vineyards, Delfosse Vineyards, Lake Anna Winery, Lovingston Winery, Rockbridge Vineyard, Rosemont Vineyard, White Hall, Williamsburg Winery, Castle Hill Cider and Athena Vineyards.

Featured breweries included Devil’s Backbone, St. George, Bold Rock Cider, Smartmouth, Young Veterans and O’Connor.

Attendees crowded around tables set up under tents as representatives from the various vendors poured samples and talked about their products.

As he tipped a fresh bottle over one extended glass, one of the vintners said, “This is my personal favorite. It’s 18 percent alcohol. This has the ability to melt a bad day.”

Craig Norman of Newport News said he’d heard about the festival through an email. He’d visited four of the wineries’ tents and was making his way around the field with a plan to buy a bottle of whichever wine he liked best.

“We would come back,” he said.

Tickets to the event were $35 in advance and $40 at the gate. Profits from the fundraiser were to benefit the Suffolk Business Women Scholarship Fund, the Make a Wish Foundation, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and the Suffolk and North Suffolk Rotary clubs.

“The fact that we’re able to raise money like this … is terrific,” said Suffolk Business Women’s Wiley. “It’s great being able to do something that gives back to the community.”

David and Rebecca Bryce of Holland, sitting with empty glasses under umbrellas where they could hear music from one of the stages that had been set up for entertainment, said they were impressed with the organization’s work.

“It’s lovely,” Rebecca said. “A very nice layout — spaced out.”

The couple, she said, “always goes to the Smithfield” wine festival and considered Suffolk’s a nice addition to the growing range of choices for such events.

“We’re winos,” she joked. “We’ll come back.”