“We will return to the four shores of Euskal Herria during the night,” said Maialen Lujanbio a long time ago in the anthological verse of the grandmothers with gobara, one of whose ends is the Rioja Alavesa. Apart from the geographical periphery, for years we have felt peripheral in different areas, with the exception of viniculture.

La fiesta de la vendimia de Rioja Alavesa has been celebrated for twenty-five years in mid-September. This year the organization has been with the neighbours of Elvillar, a town in which the dolmen of Sorginetxe is located and around the festival of wine have chosen Maialen Lujanbio as a pregonera. Good bruges, verse and wine pairing.

On the eve of the big day was the bertso-poteo organized by the school of bertsos Txandrio in the area of La Rioja. Along with Maialen Lujanbio, the programme was attended by Bertsolaris Orlando Arreitunandia, Unai Bengoetxea and Iker Olabarrieta.

In the plaza, in the Harantz txozna, Ongi Etorri Errefuxiatuak, some sixty friends listen attentively to the one who followed the sound of the trikitixa. What had to be an “intimate” session became a massive intimacy. The Sun also did not want to miss the opportunity to enjoy the greetings of the older zortziko who made the quartet. The intense rhythm of the coplas that were going to happen at the time drew a smile in the mouth of the fan. Wine, witches, masters of enology and the Basque were thrown by the Bertsolaris. And the gifts came to the witch of the verses: the village witches tattooed the verse on the leather scroll and the Txandriotarras also offered him a beautiful scarf, “thank you, Maialen.”

The engines reached the big crew in the retirement bar. There, in the zortziko txiki, the favorite corner of the old became the gaztetxe and the club of the Basques, as well as between applause, the recognition of Lujanbio in a warm, youthful and Euskaldun atmosphere: “...if so, I come to live / here”. The session ended in the pool bar and was played by points, turning the “burned” into “ege” and giving a well-deserved goodbye to the hobby.

On Sunday, the day of the great feast, the most beautiful proclamation ever heard in these corners was heard; in bertsos and in Basque. Well-sewn metaphors, with jack tones. Verses that dig into the heart, a series of truly grateful emotions for the offspring of witches that didn't burn. Between the concurrence and the concurrence, the organillo was overflowing with vitality and a akelarre shining in the eyes of the black lady.

In view of the autumn that the Euskaraldia is about to arrive, in Rioja Alavesa it is expected that the ears and the yawning and the words will appear as mushrooms of mount, there is nothing better than taking the Euskera to the plaza and playing with the words. Wine, verse and witches in the village, long live the cups!