The annual wine harvest festival concluded this weekend in Binissalem. Among the numerous events featured in this year's XXXVII Festa de Vermar there have been grapecrusher competitions, popular dances, parades, wine-tastings, juice offerings to the Virgin and last but not least free wine...This year's edition of the wine harvest festival, which began two weeks ago, concluded on Sunday with a religious service followed by the emblematic competition known as Concurs de Raïms dating back to 1973. The competition to find the biggest bunch of grapes grown in the region, was won by Joan Reus Grau who presented a bunch weighing 4 kilos 400 grams. The offering of most novell to Binissalem's patron saint Mare de Deú de Robines was one of the most emotional acts of the day. The wine harvesters crushed the grapes and then offered the juice to the Virgin in the presence of a great number of visitors and residents. In the afternoon there were performances by Castellers de Mallorca and Al.lots de Llevant. This year's wine harvest reached an historical record with the production of 2.000.000 kilos of grapes compared to last year's 1.700.000 kilos. The record figures were largely due to the increase in the number of participating wine-growers with a total of 146, 16 more than last year. Among the many memorable events of this year's festival was the popular dinner known as sopar a la fresca that filled the streets of Binissalem with thousands of participants. Other highly popular activities included the battle of the grapes and the grape-crushing competition Trepitjar Raïm that attracted a large number of young people.
A record harvest in Binissalem