El Borge

El Borge’s Fiestas and Gastronomy

El Borge’s most recently created fiesta, the "Día de la Pasa" ("Raisin Day") is actually the one with the most drawing power at the present time. Around 10,000 people gather on the third Sunday in September in this village, which organises varied performances in honour of its star product and at the same time promotes what is one of the pillars of its economy. Gazpacho (a cold soup), muscatel wine and embutidos (cold meats) are consumed on this day, and visitors are made a gift of a small bag of raisins. The fiesta consists in a music festival that goes non stop for twelve hours. Prizes and awards are given out to people and institutions who promote or favour grape growing and raisin making in El Borge.

There are demonstrations all day long of the raisin production process, namely: harvesting the grapes, transporting, spreading and drying them on the raisin driers, and sorting and packaging them. There is even a demonstration of grape trampling. In El Borge as much as 2 million kilos raisins are produced a year, and the municipality has vines that are over 150 years old now.

The San Gabriel patron saint fiestas are celebrated for three days: Holy Saturday, Resurrection Sunday and Easter Monday, throughout which there are massively attended religious and entertainment events. Pilgrimages are organised for the days of San Marcos (25 April) and San Isidro (15 May), and on the day of San Juan is the "Noche de las candelas" ("Night of the bonfires").

This village’s most traditional gastronomy is represented by ajoblanco de almendras (a cold soup with almonds) and gazpacho (another cold soup), the latter having varieties with beans or cucumber, and by hornazos (a pastry with a boiled egg), which is eaten especially during the San Marcos festivities. The raisins and muscatel wine produced in the region add to the sweetness of the desserts.