October 25 and 26 Matavendimia wine festival and fiestas in Jumilla

Jumilla celebrates the end of grape-picking season with another year of top-drawer wines already being produced

This year’s annual Matavendimia event in Jumilla, which is held to coincide (more or less) with the end of the grape harvest, is being held on 25^th and 26^th October in the Paseo del Poeta Lorenzo Guardiola and the car park of the municipal indoor swimming pool, due to the refurbishment work currently taking place at the indoor public market.

In order make it easier for people from other localities to attend a tourist bus service will be in operation offering transport to and from Murcia, Cartagena, Lorca and Caravaca, and among the activities they can enjoy, aside from the numerous wine tastings and musical performances, are others related to the journey of local grapes from the vineyards of the area into the bottles served at restaurants throughout the world-

The Ferio del Vino takes place all day from 11.00 onwards on the Saturday and from 11.00 to 17.00 on the Sunday, with numerous of the “DOP Jumilla” bodegas (wineries) taking part. Tickets will go on sale the week before the event on the website matavendimia.com: entry to the fair is free of charge and commemorative wine glasses are available at 3 euros each.

This is the 4^th time the Matavendimia has been held in Jumilla and it is now becoming one of the most important dates in the wine calendar of south-eastern Spain. Further details of the 2025 edition will be published here as and when they become available.

It is worth remembering that wine is known to have been produced in Jumilla as long ago as 3000 BC, among the earliest dates in Europe, and these days the vineyards are located at altitudes of between 320 and 980 metres above sea level. Around them are mountains reaching altitudes of 1,380 metres to the north, and the area in which DOP Jumilla wines are produced includes not only this municipality but also parts of Hellín, Montealegre del Castillo, Fuente Álamo, Ontur, Albatana and Tobarra.

In all there are over 20,000 hectares of wines, most of them non-irrigated, and 15 per cent of this area is accounted for by the old “pie franco” vines, those of the Monastrell strain which survived the Phylloxera vine pest in the 19^th century.

For more local events, news and visiting information go to the home page of Jumilla Today.