At Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, people traditionally eat grapes for the twelve midnight chimes on New Year’s Eve.
The custom is known as las doce uvas de la suerte, or “the twelve grapes of luck.” Participants try to eat one grape with each stroke of the clock at midnight. Completing the sequence is popularly associated with good fortune in the coming year.
The tradition became especially prominent in Spain during the early twentieth century. A widely repeated explanation connects its spread to grape growers who had a surplus harvest, although the practice also grew from earlier urban customs involving grapes and New Year celebrations.
The Puerta del Sol clock is broadcast nationally, making the ritual one of Spain’s best-known New Year traditions. The grapes are not cherries or olives: their defining feature is the number twelve, matching the twelve chimes and the twelve months ahead.