Fiestas de San Mateo y Vendimia Riojana is one of the wine festivals that anchors the Rioja calendar, drawing both local visitors and international wine travellers each year. It is held at Logroño in La Rioja, in the heart of one of Spain's most distinctive wine areas. It has been running since 1956, with a long unbroken local tradition behind it.
Logroño's main annual festival, combining the religious feast of San Mateo with the official opening of the Rioja grape harvest. The programme includes the traditional pisado de la uva (grape-stomping ceremony) on 21 September in the Espolón park, where the first must of the new vintage is offered to the Virgen de Valvanera, alongside concerts, a children's programme, fireworks, bullfights, dance performances and tastings of the Rioja wineries' new releases. Calle Laurel and Calle San Juan in the old town fill nightly with pintxos crowds. Harvest and grape festivals — fiestas de la vendimia, festas das vindimas, weinlesefeste — are some of the longest-running celebrations in their regions, with many running uninterrupted for a century or more. Programmes typically combine grape-stomping demonstrations, traditional music, parades of allegorical floats, food stalls offering regional specialities, and tastings of the area's wines. The events have strong local character and are often as much community celebrations as wine programmes, with town councils, parish committees and local producer associations sharing the organisational load. Many festivals incorporate religious elements — blessings of the harvest, processions to the parish church — that connect the wine calendar to the liturgical year. The event is organised by Ayuntamiento de Logroño, which sets the tone and direction of the programme each year.
Rioja is Spain's most internationally-known wine region and one of only two Denominaciones de Origen Calificada (DOCa) — the country's highest classification. The region stretches along the Ebro Valley across three administrative areas (La Rioja, Basque Country and Navarra) and divides into three sub-zones: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental (formerly Rioja Baja). Tempranillo is the dominant grape, blended with Garnacha, Graciano and Mazuelo for the reds, with Viura the main white variety. The region's traditional ageing classification — Joven, Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva — has been adopted across other Spanish regions.
The 2026 edition is scheduled for September 19-25, 2026. Entry is free, with optional paid tasting passes or guided sessions available on site. Full programme, ticketing and updated information are published on the official site at https://www.logroño.es. Visitors are advised to check directly with the organiser for the latest schedule, as festival programmes are sometimes updated close to the event date.
Rioja is reached most easily via Bilbao or Madrid, with the high-speed AVE train connecting Madrid to Logroño in under 4 hours. Logroño is the regional capital and Haro the historic wine-trade centre, with the Barrio de la Estación neighbourhood concentrating many of the most-visited wineries (López de Heredia, CVNE, Bodegas Bilbainas, La Rioja Alta, Muga). Riojan cuisine pairs the wines with patatas a la riojana, lamb chuletillas grilled over vine clippings, white asparagus from Navarra, and the area's pintxos culture in Logroño's Calle Laurel.
