This weekend the LVIII Albariño Festival was held in the local town of Cambados. Some 43 bodegas set up shop in the town square, selling Albariño, either by the glass or by the bottle to the general public. If you look back to my posts of previous years you will see that Castro Martin actively avoids attending, mostly because the whole event demands a huge amount of work, for little or no return. Most of the ‘tasting’ is conducted at night, and extends well into the early hours, by which time the atmosphere is extremely animated and highly charged to say the least.

Unfortunately this year, possibly for the first time as far as I am aware, the festival was marred by violence, as fighting broke out amongst the crowd – I quote from our local paper as follows:

“El día grande de la Festa do Albariño en Cambados tuvo otra vertiente al margen de la festiva, ya que la jornada de ayer se saldó con varias peleas en las calles de la localidad que acabaron con un joven detenido por agresión. Sobre las once de la mañana se registró una reyerta multitudinaria en un local de copas de la calle de la movida cambadesa, pelea que finalizó con varios heridos por contusiones, y al menos uno de ellos tuvo que ser trasladado al Hospital do Salnés.”

“Un joven de Lugo, Bruno J.S., tuvo que ser trasladado al hospital con una herida en el abdomen por la que sangraba y que, al parecer, se había hecho con un cristal. Por estos hechos fue detenido Cristian C. C., al que los agentes arrestaron acusado de un delito de lesiones.”

To summarise, a “massive brawl” broke out resulting in several people suffering bruises, and one poor man from Lugo admitted to hospital with bleeding from the abdomen, apparently caused by glass.

I do hope that this is not the shape of things to come.