Grape Throwing Festival

When: To be confirmed
Where: Mallorca, Spain

The Grape Throwing Festival is held annually during the last weekend in September, in the wine-growing village of Binissalem, Mallorca. The festival celebrates the grape harvest and the main attractions include a grape-stomping competition, grape-throwing fight, and lots of fun!

Although the history of this event is somewhat lost through the ages, it seems to have its roots in ensuring a good harvest season by removing the “not so good” grapes before the winter. The event started as a harvest celebration when people had no idea what to do with the grapes that were not good enough to make wine from. Grape Throwing Festival is for sure a messy celebration, but can also be a lot of fun.

The festival lasts two entire weeks with almost daily fights as well as a grape-treading competition and certainly, lots of wine! Mallorca Grape Throwing Festival is the only Grape Throwing fight in the world, yet is seems to be less prominent than many other food fights.

The village of Binissalem is surrounded by vineyards, and the festival rejoicing the annual grape harvest attracts over a thousand visitors each year. The participants assemble in the central square of the village and wait for the organisers to fire a rocket! With this starting signal the crowd follows the traditional piper out into a field outside the village and gathers around a large heap of grapes. At a whistle blow, everyone starts the sweet n juicy fight of throwing grapes at each other.

Following the grape fight, all visitors are invited to savour some of the wines in the town square and the whole event culminates in a grand party.

Earlier, only the locals could attend the festival; however, after being opened to foreigners, it is gaining popularity rapidly. Manto Negro, the variety of grape which is used for the local wines, is cultivated only in Mallorca and nowhere else in the world and one can get this delicacy during the festival in the village itself.