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Winegrowers' Festival



A tradition of Vevey, the Fête des Vignerons (Winegrowers' Festival) includes a show that celebrates the world of winemaking. The Festival recognizes the community's winegrowers including those in the industry, public members and local artists. The Winegrowers' Festival now includes fifteen events over three weeks and over 5,000 contributors. Each festival is based on the recreation of a traditional theme, such as working the earth and vines, seasonal cycle, or brotherhood. The history of the Vevey Winegrowers Festival is connected with that of the Brotherhood of Winegrowers. The first celebration of the Brotherhood of Winegrowers was held in the 17th century when it was known as the Agricultural Association or the Abbaye of St. Urban. Other associations created yearly pageants called parades, processions, or challenges, which went through the town. Fête is more than just a wine event, it is a living tradition, pulsating through Vevey's viticultural roots. Each Fête has its own coronation ceremony, where the results are kept secret until the Confrérie head announces them on stage. On the same day, a large procession passes by the lake, allowing the public to salute the prize-winners and Confrérie members. Many people also flock to the city-wide Ville en Fête, which includes pop-up food stalls, late-night wine bars, outdoor concerts, and theater in the open air. Transmission occurs through family and within the Vevey Brotherhood of Winegrowers, which is a not-for-profit association. It organizes the festival and includes winegrowers and the general public. In addition to encouraging the local spirit, it also keeps the artistic life of the region alive and provides a sense of cultural continuity. As the Winegrowers' Festival in Vevey succeeded and as the organizers' ambition increased to constantly improve the festival, it became increasingly difficult to organize more than five Winegrowers' Festivals per century. The festival remains even though Vevey is no longer the serene rural town where the first parades of winegrowers took place. This once-a-generation festival is a celebration of identity, bringing together ancestral traditions and contemporary preoccupations in a small city where most people do not know the reality of winegrowers’ and farmers’ lives. It is an event that takes the spectators back to their past and celebrates the modern lives of working men and women. The Winegrowers Festival is a song of love and hope, an ode to the land, to the homeland, to humankind and her origins – a celebration of life's cycle.

References

(https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/winegrowers-festival-in-vevey-01201) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%AAte_des_Vignerons) (https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20191113-the-worlds-most-extravagant-wine-event)

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