A battle so fierce that the vineyard and surrounding hillsides turn purple, so violent that the weary and wounded stumble away from the fighting covered from head to toe in what is, in fact, glorious and gorgeous red wine… This is San Vino Wine Fight Festival 2017, also known as La Batalla del Vino de Haro which takes place on 29th June.

The day starts at 7am with a procession of people old and young, locals and tourists, dressed in white shirts and red scarves, all carrying jugs, bottles, water pistols and other types of containers filled to the brim with sweet rogue wine. Led by the town’s mayor, the procession winds through the town to the cliffs of Bilibio, where a mass is celebrated. After the mass a true free-for-all wine fight begins, and we take advantage of a bottomless supply of red wine and throw it on and at each other, friends and strangers alike. What follows is a sea of wet, purple bodies everywhere. San Vino Wine Fight Festival 2017 is a sight not to be missed.

And then, when it’s all done, we wipe the wine off us and we head back down the mountain, pickled, as it were, in delicious red vino. At noon everyone rushes into town to celebrate at the Plaza de la Paz, the celebrations involve drinking, partying and running around a bull ring chasing frolicking heifers. That’s La Batalla del Vino or San Vino Wine Fight Festival 2017 in a nutshell.