I think that the Confraria do Vinho do Porto, in Portugal, needs to project its action outside its traditional activities.
I remember an event that was a huge success and is in the spirit of the above mentioned. In May 1995 the new organ of the Church of Lapa was ready to be inaugurated.
There is a tradition: to fill the main pipes of a new organ with wine.
When this became known in our Confraternity it was decided to propose to the Rector of the Church, Dr. Ferreira dos Santos, to have a ceremony in which the pipes would be filled with Port Wine.
We needed 1.500 litres of Port Wine which would fill 10 barrels to be transported in 3 ox-joints.
This is where the problem started: it had to be a group of oxen used to the transport work, which in 1995 was not easy to find.
The Porto Folkloric Group, besides animating the parade which left Praça do Infante, managed to find a parade in Vila Nova de Gaia and two in Santo Tirso. Oxen and respective cars had to be driven by truck to the beginning of the parade.
Everything was ready and the procession got out, with a delay, due to heavy rain that soaked everything and everybody.
At the front, a noisy group of drums from the “Mareantes do Rio Douro”, the Folkloric Rancho, the three ox-carts with pipos and finally the Confraternity closing the procession.
There was a great popular support, especially when arriving at the Lapa Church.
Some people were so enthusiastic that they wished the Confreres much health so that we could have “parties as beautiful as those”.
Once the kites were unloaded, on planks, they were rolled into the church.
Then, one by one, they were lifted with the help of a capstan, fixed to the roof of the temple, up to the upper opening of the organ pipes to be filled with the Port Wine they contained.
It was an authentically mediaval scene and in the faces of the people who attended everything, passed the enormous joy of an unpublished spectacle.