The fair of San Mateo, or Harvest Festival, finds in the taurine fair one of its main claims
Although San Mateo is not the patron of Logroño (this title is held by San Bernabé), the celebrations around his festivity, on September 21, make them the most important in La Rioja. They are also known as Harvest Festival, given the dates of collection of the grape, in a land where almost everything revolves around vine.
The origin is found in the Middle Ages, around the twelfth century. Since then, Logroño was recognized as a village, which gave it the right to hold an annual fair and turned it into an important trading point. Like all fairs, with the passage of time the festive and leisure part became more important; until arriving at our days as mainly holidays.
Previously, it was celebrated in early September, dates in which the Rioja gave thanks for the harvest. In the middle of the eighteenth century and by a Royal Decree of Isabel II, the fair is set on 21 September. San Mateo was a tax collector and became the patron of the merchants, reason of the devotion of those who performed the work of harvesting.
The fair starts with the firing of the rocket, popularly called “chupinazo”. The most important event is celebrated on the 21st: the treading of the grape, the First Grape of the Harvest is collected and offered to the Virgin of Valvanera, patroness of La Rioja. Throughout those days there are concerts, tastings with the best wines of Rioja and the most typical dishes of the area, parades of floats, fireworks contest, one of the most important fairs of ‘pelota vasca’ of the geography and, of course , the Taurine Fair.
The semifinal of the Spanish ‘Recortadores’ Championships will precede, on September 16, the start of the San Mateo 2018 Fair. A steers bullfight, four bullfights and a mixed bullfight form the posters of the bullfighting fair of Logroño that, one year more, it gathers the most select in the capital of La Rioja.
Happy week, bullfighting lovers!
