People traditionally eat 12 grapes at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
The custom is known in Spanish as las doce uvas de la suerte, or “the twelve grapes of luck.” Participants try to eat one grape with each of the 12 midnight chimes. Each grape is commonly associated with good fortune for one month of the coming year.
Puerta del Sol is a major public square in central Madrid and the site of Spain’s best-known televised New Year countdown. The clock on the former post office building, now the headquarters of the Community of Madrid, provides the chimes heard across the country.
A common mistake is to confuse the preliminary quarter chimes with the 12 grape chimes. The faster sequence follows the traditional countdown, so participants prepare the grapes beforehand. The practice is now celebrated in homes and public squares throughout Spain and in parts of Latin America.