Grape-pressing festival 2023

Hello friends, today I want to share with you some photos I took yesterday, Sunday 15 January, during the grape (must) pressing festival. This is a traditional festival that takes place every year in a province close to mine, exactly in the municipality of Breganze, a small rural and country town.

I knew of a tradition that took place every year in the small town of Breganze, where grapes were pressed to make a delicious raisin wine. The grapes had rested for several months and had obtained an excellent grade and were ready to be pressed. Every year in Piazza Mazzini one has the opportunity to witness this pressing and then also to taste the result, because the must of the raisin wine that has just been obtained is offered to all the people present in the square.

Unfortunately the weather was not the best, but luckily in the morning it was only cloudy and not raining, so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and attend the event. I decided to take a tour to see this ancient tradition, which I also do with my father because he has the tradition of making wine at home, although we already did it last week. It's just a pity that I forgot to photograph and film this.

The thing I like the most when I participate in these types of events is the chance to see how people behave and how they appreciate this kind of initiative. In particular, that day I was also lucky enough to be able to take a free guided tour of the Breganze church bell tower, which ranks 13th among the tallest bell towers in Italy. The view from the top was truly spectacular, it was just a pity that when I went up it started raining, but despite this I was able to enjoy a beautiful panorama.

This visit to the bell tower was a bit unexpected for me, because I had not read anything about this building and so I was a bit unprepared. Fortunately, there are information boards inside that helped me to better understand the history of this place. I discovered that the bell tower was built between 1842 and 1893, but that the clock and all the mechanism inside was later made by Pietro Laverda in 1906. Pietro Laverda is the founder of a large company that makes clocks for bell towers, castles and other buildings. I also heard that they plan to open the bell tower for more frequent visits.

I decided to climb to the top of the bell tower to see the 22 bells that are there. During the visit, I had the opportunity to consult an information table that gave me a better understanding of the history of these bells, such as when they were made. But what impressed me most was to discover that each bell has a different sound and a different note. The table I consulted summarised this very characteristic, making it possible to understand how each bell contributes to the harmony of the bell tower's sound. It was really interesting to discover these details and made me appreciate even more the art and craftsmanship behind the construction of a bell tower.

Luckily these bells were not in action because honestly we would have evolved headphones However, below I leave you a video that I shot in another bell tower but in the province of Mantua in a town called Castel Goffredo where instead at the end of the video I was able to film the bells in operation and I almost had to run away from the hearing discomfort