Manilva celebrates its main festival dedicated to the Grape Harvest

This weekend, Manilva is immersed in its Harvest Festival, a celebration "that we, the people of Manilva, love the most ... and that highlights our traditions based on agriculture and wine culture," according to its mayor, Mario Jiménez.

"These festivities also mark the end of summer, a good and important season for our municipality characterized by a lot of leisure and tourism," the mayor affirms.

Thus, the Harvest Festival officially starts today, Saturday, September 6, with a mass in honor of Our Lady of Sorrows at Santa Ana Church, a sung celebration featuring the Choir from the Municipal School of Music.

Following the mass, the procession will move to Mar Street accompanied by the Manilva Municipal Music Band, where the traditional offering of grapes from this year's harvest will take place along with a competition for the heaviest bunch of grapes, in a year where the grape harvest has been marked throughout the province by the mildew fungus plague due to intense rains last fall and spring and rising average temperatures.

Sunday, September 7, will be the main day with the celebration of Domingo Rociero, a festival recognized as a Tourist Singularity Event where Manilva grapes and wine will be tasted, and a colorful parade of horse riders featuring the Manilva Horse Club will take place.

In the afternoon, at the wine press in Plaza de la Vendimia, the traditional grape stomping and tasting of the first juice from this year's harvest will be performed.

Punto Violeta

As a new feature, this year's Manilva Harvest Festival includes a Violet Point installed at the Vine Interpretation Center of Manilva (Civima) for awareness and support for victims of gender-based violence.

Several municipal departments coordinate during this festival, including Culture and Festivities, Agriculture, and also Social Welfare and Equality.

The festivities also had their preludes with the celebration last Thursday of the first Harvest Trophy, a soccer triangular between Unión Manilva, U.D. Tesorillo, and Club Deportivo San Roque, a trophy that stayed home.

And on Friday, it was the turn of the 44th Edition of the Harvest Flamenco Festival, featuring performances by Miguelón de Jerez with Ruben Lara on guitar; Galacho de Málaga with Luis El Salas on guitar; José Lucena and his flamenco group with Madre Mar; Angelita Montoya with Paco Iglesias on guitar, and as a guest artist, the Andalusian singer Alba Molina.