Which New Year's Eve event in Madrid traditionally begins with eating 12 grapes at midnight?

Madrid's Puerta del Sol countdown traditionally begins with eating 12 grapes at midnight.

On New Year's Eve, people in Spain commonly eat one grape with each of the clock's twelve midnight chimes. The custom is known as las doce uvas de la suerte, or “the twelve grapes of luck.” Each grape is associated with one month of the coming year, and successfully eating all twelve is traditionally linked with good fortune.

Madrid's Puerta del Sol is especially famous because the clock on the Casa de Correos building provides the televised chimes for the national celebration. Crowds gather in the square, while many more people watch from home and synchronize their grapes with the broadcast.

The grape tradition is sometimes linked to a surplus harvest in the early twentieth century, although versions of the practice and its origin story vary. Puerta del Sol is a central public square in Madrid, not a separate Spanish festival. The best-known event is the midnight countdown and grape ritual.