The grapes harvest of September 23, 1945 in Modra (source: TASR)
On September 15 the renovated town-hall courtyard will become the focus of the Modra Wine Fest’s festive opening, or Modranské Vinobranie. It will become a vinicultural yard with a town wine-cellar, and the opening programme will include the awarding of prizes for the Best Modranské Vinobranie Wine contest.
Visitors will be able to taste the competing wines in the historical town cellar, the TASR newswire wrote, citing the www.modranskevinobranie.sk website.
“By adapting the courtyard of the historical town-hall, we created a town wine-cellar, and the heart of the local wine fest,” the website continued, adding that the crème de la crème of Modra will be offered: Federweisser (fermented alcoholic drink from pressed grapes), wine, musts, home-made wine-harvest delicacies, products from grapes and sale of table grapes. The viniculture courtyard will also present commented demonstrations of grape-pressing and the traditional making of musts and wines.
The stylised allegorical parade Posledná Lajtra will be the focal point of the September 16 programme and a symbol of the event. “It is a typical concluding act, the historically documented conclusion of the vintage feasts,” the website explains. It is named after the festively decorated last carriage of the vintage harvest, which used to be accompanied by the wine-pickers to the house of the farmer who owned the vineyard.
Local vinicultural associations and unions, civic associations, lay performing ensembles, local schools and volunteers will participate in the reenactment of the traditional parade, which includes selected typical features documented from the items between the two world wars.
The parade will take place on September 16 at 15:00, as directed by the Modra-based ethnologist and artist Agáta Petrakovičová. Part of the grape harvest will be music and theatre performances, exhibitions and a vintage cars parade. The full programme can be found on the website.
