In Madrid’s Puerta del Sol celebration, twelve grapes are traditionally eaten with the twelve midnight clock chimes.
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 at each chime as the clock at the Real Casa de Correos marks the transition into the new year. Finishing the sequence is popularly associated with good fortune for the twelve months ahead.
The tradition spread nationally through newspaper reports and commercial promotion. A frequently cited origin story places its major popularization in 1909, when grape growers promoted surplus fruit, although earlier references to the custom also exist. The televised clock chimes from Puerta del Sol now make the ritual a shared national event.
The grapes are not simply a decorative countdown prop: the number twelve corresponds to the months of the coming year. Visitors often prepare by buying small or seedless grapes because eating one per chime requires careful timing.