Haro Wine Festival

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The Haro Wine Festival is a summer festival in the town of Haro, La Rioja, Spain. It features a Batalla de Vino (Battle of Wine) and youth bullfights. It is considered a "Festival of International Tourist Interest" and, therefore, is very tourist friendly.^[1] The festival takes place on June 29, the day of the patron saint San Pedro.^[2]

The festival includes a mass that is celebrated at the Chapel of San Felices de Bilibio. San Felices de Bilibio, master of San Millán in the 6th century, lived and died in what is now known as the Cliffs of Bilibio. Since then, this chapel has been visited and admired by pilgrims. The pilgrimage became a much more organized and widely-celebrated tradition since the construction of the first official chapel on the cliffs. This chapel was built at the beginning of the 18th century.^[2]

After the mass, the Battle of Wine begins. During lunch, the participants throw wine on each other until everyone is completely soaked and colored purple. The wine can be thrown using boots, bottles, water pistols, or anything that can contain liquid.^[3] This soaking was not to everyone's taste, so for several years the popularity of the pilgrimage decreased, especially for women who did not want their dresses to be stained.^[2] However, in 1949, the Battle of Wine earned its first mention in Enrique Hermosilla Díez’s article for La Rioja newspaper. Word traveled and the festival regained popularity over the following years. Today, the Haro Wine Festival annually attracts people from all over the world.