Labastida is a village located in the province of Álava, in the Basque Country, northern Spain , in close proximity to the region of the Rioja Alaversa, one of the most well known areas for the production of fine wine in the world.
With about 1,500 residents, Labastida’s population multiplies by ten in summer and on weekends, as many tourists go there to enjoy the pure air, the nice, young atmosphere and the delicious food and wine.
Leticia Alfaya Lozano, owner of the bar Hasiera café with her husband Gorka and representative of the local traders’ association ACOBASA, was the main organizer of this event, also supported by the city council.
The record breaking day started in the morning when 1,025 people of different ages registered their names for the record attempt at various registration points allocated in La Paz square.
Each registered participant received a number and a t-shirt to wear for the world record attempt taking place the same evening and each one would be counted again by the adjudicator and helpers a few hours later, upon entering the record breaking area.
During the afternoon the 25.000 kilos (27.56 tn) of black grapes were carried by a big lorry and tipped into the main square, which soon became a juicy and tasty black carpet of grapes.
At 7 o’clock on the dot all the participants started to enter the record breaking area in an impressive and diligent numeric order.
At eight o’clock a pile of nearly 2,000 shoes lay at the entrance of the enclosed record area and 977 participants, officially verified by Lucia Sinigagliesi, Guinness World Records adjudicator for this event, were ready to start treading on the grapes.
The record to break, set in Australia in 2005, was 540 people and in order for the new attempt to be valid the 977 people had to tread the grapes for 3 consecutive minutes.
When the official timekeeper together with the adjudicator gave the starting signal to the participants, the well known Spanish band named Gasteiz Big Band started to play a popular song and the participants completely went for it!
From the town hall the view was amazing and an intense feeling of joy and pride filled the whole town of Labastida, as treading grapes is something most people know how to do very well in this part of the world.
For a town of 1,500 habitants to achieve an attendance of 977 people was surely a fantastic achievement.
Source - guinnessworldrecords
