Story: The Grape Stomp: A Spanish Wine Festival

With all due respect, let me explain the concept of time according to a Spaniard. In order to acclimate to their timetable, you must first turn your daily schedule inside out and upside-down. For example, a typical day for a Spaniard goes like this: Up at 9:00 AM, at work at 10:00 break at 11:00, close at 12:30 (with many smoke breaks in between) for siesta (meaning a long lunch and a nap), re-open shop at 4:00PM or 4:30, work until 8:30PM with a few breaks in between. Now, life begins.

Everyone spiffies up and strolls around the plaza (paseo) with friends and relatives meeting up with more of the same. They stroll in and out of bars drinking and eating tapas (similar to our hors d'oeuvres, but Spanish style) until 10:30 or 11:00PM when they have dinner at home or at a restaurant until midnight after which they turn in for the night.

Since it is a festival, many people go out again for a stroll until about 2:00AM or even 4:00AM. How many? Try thousands of people. The scene is like Times Square at New Year's eve. Once you adapt to the six-hour time change and the lifestyle, you're ready to join the party.

For several days prior to the festival, the wine caves are open to visitors. The Spanish wine is produced in some unusual and interesting structures: a monastery, medieval villa, another grows organic grapes, and one winery is futuristic in style. The wineries are immense, some stretching for 250 acres as far as the horizon, glistening with plump, purple clusters of grapes weighing down the vines.

In the opening ceremony of the festival, a boy and girl in traditional costume are chosen to carry baskets of grapes. The horns blast and barefoot men stand in a barrel stomping the grapes to commemorate the first grape juice (Mosto), which is offered to the Virgin of Valvenera, Patron Saint of La Rioja.

The party then begins and the town bursts into activity like a bees' nest. At the Market Place (Plaza del Mercado), ten-foot tall characters from Spain's history, called Pasacalles, parade and dance through the streets. Bunches of balloons are so profuse that they swamp the vendors. The blare of a mariachi band, smartly uniformed in black costumes, and wearing sombreros plays Mexican music on one corner while a few yards away, a Peruvian band lightly plays their flutes.

The candy shops and gelato shops are open and little kids are having a ball. Here and there, a weird looking Mickey Mouse character or a well-worn Donald Duck greets the kids. A new generation of hippies sells their handicrafts on the street and people spill out of the tapas bars embracing each other.

The wine festival is almost as old as the grape itself. For centuries, horse-drawn carts rolled into town laden with the harvested grapes. It was around this time that drinks were served with saucers (tapas) over them to keep away the flies. Soon little snacks of cheese, olives, nuts and bits of meat were placed on the saucer to enjoy with the drinks. The practice has progressed to a whole creative gastronomy of hot and cold appetizers, costing from one to two euros.

Parades can be found marching around every corner of Logrono. All kinds of bands, in a flurry of festive colors, beat to the vibrant songs of Spain. In addition to drink, food was also being celebrated. At the XXVI Festival of the Lamb Chop (Chuleta al Sarmeinto), music fills the outdoor plaza as bands, opera singers, and folk dancers take their turn on the stage. The hot afternoon sun bears down on the throngs that stand in line to get in. A plate piled with thin cut lamb chops is placed on the table family-style with a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. The chops are grilled over the embers of boughs of dried grape vines that when first lit burgeons into great balls of fire. With seven of these bonfires burning simultaneously, it looks like an old fashioned Southern political rally. The chops are quite tasty and whoever eats the most chops wins a prize. A pyramid pile of bones soon replaces the tasty chops; I think I ate twenty-not nearly enough to win.

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