Haro Wine Festival is a festival in the town of Haro

Haro, La Rioja

Haro is a town and municipality in the northwest of La Rioja province in northern Spain. It is known for its fine red wine and every year the Haro Wine Festival is held where locals hold a wine battle....

 in the La Rioja region of northern Spain. It is held every year in the summer and involves wine drinking competitions and contests and a Batalla de Vino (Battle of Wine) where wines are poured at each other from buckets.

The celebration takes place on June 29, the day of the patron saint San Pedro. The day begins at 7:00 am, with a procession of people old and young, dressed in white shirts and red scarves, all carrying jugs, bottles, botas and other types of containers filled with red wine. Led by the town's mayor, on horseback, the procession winds through the town to the Cliffs of Bilibio, where a mass is celebrated at the Hermitage of San Felices de Bilibio. After the mass a true free-for-all begins, with everyone tossing wine on each other until all are soaked from head to foot. There is a sea of wet, pink shirts everywhere. Then at noon everyone returns to town to celebrate at the Plaza de la Paz, followed by bullfights in the town's bullring. But the bullfights are only for the youth, and the "bulls" are actually just heifers.

External links

• http://www.haro.org
• http://www.ma-design.net/spain/haro/haro_en.php