Wow, what a day!
The Festival de la Vendimia is the Annual Grape Harvest held to mark the start of the vintage. This begins on the feast of St. Matthew (21st September), but each village holds the festival around this date at different times. The festival is held in many towns and villages in Andalucia, including Jerez. In Manilva, Malaga, this is held over two days – the 4th and 5th of September. There have been vineyards in Manilva since the 16th Century, and these vines now surrround an expanding village. Even if the landscape has changed, their local speciality hasn’t!
The grape which is harvested is the Moscatel grape, which is dried to produce ‘Pasas de Malaga’ (raisins) and the grapes are pressed to produce the infamous Malaga wine. This is quite a sweet wine, and is used in many cuisines, especially to make fabulous sweet sauces to accompany game and poultry. As well as for drinking of course!
On the first day of the festival, you could hear the rockets being let off and the band peforming in the street as early as 8 a.m.! Two days of merriment to come…! Mass was held in the afternoon in honour of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores and she was presented with a bunch of grapes. The ‘feria’ commenced with music and dancing and a procession was held with horse riders and the ‘Queen of the Vintage’ who is chosen from the beautiful girls of the area.
The next day, there was even more dancing and music and at 7 p.m., the ceremonial first treading of the grapes was held in the central square. As many people as possible gathered to see this- it was very hard to get close but have a look at the video and you’ll see how much fun it was! I’d love to have a go at this- the traditional way of pressing is by rolling your trousers up and treading the grapes with bare feet; even with a bit of dancing! Then we could taste the first ‘mosto’ grape juice of the season.
All superb fun and well worth visiting the region at this time to sample a true, traditional and vibrant festival. One for all the family!
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