On this date exactly 115 years have passed a milestone that changed popular culture: The first time that Spanish society in a unified and massive way received the New Year by eating twelve grapes. January 1, 1910 was not just the beginning of a new year, but the birth of a tradition that connects millions of people today.
Its story takes us to the last months of 1909, when the winemakers in the area of Alicante and Murcia You were faced with a critical situation: exceptionally rich white grape harvest that threatened to rot in the fields. The solution came not from politics but directly from commercial ingenuity.
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For this reason, an advertising campaign was launched to release the production, presenting the grape as such “Fruit of Happiness”. Citizens were encouraged to eat one grape each month at the beginning of the new year. The proposal was so successful that he gave in at midnight January 1, 1910the entire country joined in the ritual.
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Although there was a story before 1910 where Madrid citizens went to Puerta del Sol to eat grapes (originally as… mocking protest against communal restrictions and the sophistication of the aristocracy, which imitated French taste), was the Institutionalization of 1910 which gave it the character of a “national tradition”.
That first day in January 1910 marked a before and after. What was born as a strategy to save the economy of the Aledo variety farmers eventually became one Element of Hispanic identity.
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