People traditionally eat grapes one by one at midnight in Spain's New Year's Eve custom.
The practice is known as las doce uvas de la suerte, or “the twelve grapes of luck.” Participants try to eat one grape with each of the twelve midnight chimes. The grapes represent the twelve months ahead, and successfully keeping pace is associated with good fortune for the new year.
Spain's most famous public countdown takes place at Puerta del Sol in Madrid. Television broadcasts show the clock and its chimes, allowing people across the country to follow the ritual from home. Supermarkets commonly sell prepared packs of twelve grapes for the occasion.
The custom is often linked to a large grape harvest in 1909, when growers promoted the idea as a way to use surplus fruit, although earlier evidence shows that the practice existed before that campaign. The midnight chimes, rather than the preceding warning sounds, mark when the eating begins.