La Rioja Turismo

Festival of the Rioja Wine Harvest
Logroño, the 21st of September

Celebrations declared as being of tourist interest, held in Logroño during a week around the 21st of September. On the 21^st, the feast day of San Mateo, there is a traditional ceremony in the main square, the Paseo del Espolón, in which the first must of the new harvest is offered to the patron saint of La Rioja, Our Lady of Valvanera.
 
This must is produced through traditional crushing of the grapes by two men dressed in regional costume, treading barefoot, with their arms interlinked as they press the bunches of grapes emptied into the large wooden tub, with a circular dance-like movement, until the couple dressed in regional dress known as the Vendimiadores Mayores of the festival can fill a jug with the first juice to offer to the statue of the Virgin of Valvanera.

During this week of revelry in Logroño, there is a carnival procession, gastronomic tastings organised by the social clubs known as “peñas”, a programme of bullfights, the San Mateo “pelota” tournament in the Adarraga “Fronton” court, concerts, theatre, live music in the street, firework displays over the river Ebro, etc.

The festival programme is published on Logroño city hall’s web site once it has been finalised  at www.logro-o.org

Wine battle
Haro, 29 June

This takes place in the cliffs of the Riscos de Bilibio, next to the Shrine of San Felices above Haro.
As part of the feast days of Haro dedicated to San Juan, San Felices and San Pedro. At the end of June, the Wine Battle takes place. The historical origin of this combat can be found in a territorial conflict between the town of Miranda del Ebro, belonging to Burgos province and La Rioja’s Haro over the possession of the cliffs of Bilibio.
 
There had been a medieval castle there built over a pre-Roman stronghold, a place from which the Reconquest was launched. San Felices, master of San Millán de la Cogolla lived in a cave in these cliffs and it was there that a shrine was erected in his honour.

For the battle over this place and to keep control of it, each year on the day of San Pedro, 29th June, the inhabitants of the Riojan town of Haro must go to the cliffs of Bilibio. Then the High Alderman of the town of Haro plants the town’s standard on the highest part of these cliffs as a sign of ownership. If the people of Haro should ever fail to keep this appointment, they would lose dominion over this area and it would pass to the jurisdiction of neighbouring Miranda de Ebro. 
 
A mass is celebrated in the Shrine of San Felices followed by a lunch. Then the wine battle can begin, during which all those present throw and spray thousands of litres of wine over each other using a motley collection of containers and utensils. The clothes worn by the combatants gradually changes to the colour of wine and the surroundings are dyed wine-coloured.
  
After the battle the survivors return to the town where the traditional dance around the Plaza de la Paz, next to the Town Hall of Haro, takes place.
  
For more details see the web site at www.haro.org

Battle of “Clarete”
San Asensio, 25 July

San Asensio celebrates its homage in honour of this type of wine as part of the feast of the St James the Apostle with the famous “Battle of Clarete”, a dispute in which the town is literally watered with the precious fruit of the vine.  

As is the tradition, each year on 25 July, the people of San Asensio and visitors wait for the start of the battle to flood this town in the Rioja Alta with its most appreciated asset. The so-called “Clarete” rosé wine.  40,000 litres of the liquid are provided by cooperative wineries and bodegas from the area so that the “soldiers” can fill any kind of container imaginable which can be converted into inoffensive weapons to use against the enemy hordes: anyone who happens to be passing nearby.
 
This tradition is not very old, as only 27 years have elapsed since the “Peña Clarete” fired their first salvos of clarete during a festive lunch.