Dani grožđa in Buje: floats, open cellars and the Sunday tombola

At 17:00 on the festival Sunday, decorated floats roll down Istarska ulica in Buje towards Trg J. B. Tita. Villages, clubs and children ride on them and act out the grape harvest and old farm life. Dani grožđa, Festa dell'uva in Italian, is the grape festival of Buje, a hill town in north-west Istria about 13 km from Umag. It runs from Friday to Sunday in mid-September. Entry to the concerts and the rest of the programme is free, the town says. The 2026 festival was the 120th edition.

A wine cellar opening in 1905 started the feast

The town of Buje dates the first festival to 1905, the year the first wine cellar in Buje opened. Back then the feast marked the start of the grape harvest. Historian Denis Visintin told Glas Istre that no archive document proves the year 1905 directly. In his view the festival may have grown out of the older festa della vendemmia, the harvest feast. He traced the first public tombola in Buje to 8 September 1883, the feast of Mala Gospa. The local care home, Casa pia di ricovero, organised it to pay for medicine and medical equipment.

In the 1960s the festival lasted about 15 days, with the focus on the last three. A caravan of decorated vehicles drove along the Slovenian coast, handing out grapes and the programme, until the mid-1970s. An ox turned on a spit, and the tombola numbers went out over loudspeakers because the crowd spilled far beyond the square. Some editions were missed during the Croatian War of Independence and during the pandemic, so the edition number runs behind the calendar.

Three days in mid-September

The festival keeps to one weekend in mid-September. The 114th edition ran from 13 to 15 September 2019, Glas Istre reported. In 2023 the 117th edition opened with football matches on Tuesday 12 September, and the main programme ran from Friday 15 to Sunday 17 September. The 118th followed from 13 to 15 September 2024, the 119th from 19 to 21 September 2025 and the 120th from 18 to 20 September 2026. The Day of the Town of Buje comes first, on 8 September, the feast of Mala Gospa.

Sport by day, concerts by night

The programme mixes sport, wine and village customs. Local clubs and associations run most of it. Recent editions followed the same order:

• Friday: children paint scenes of Buje in the old town at the Dječji Ex-tempore from 8:00. At 18:30 the Otvoreni podrumi wine walk, the open cellars, leaves Trg Slobode with a brass band and passes the stands of local winemakers. In the evening come the final of the Memorijal Mario Bazjak five-a-side football tournament and a tournament in mora cantada, the old hand game.
• Saturday: the longest day. Hunting dogs compete at the Rozolija shooting range from early morning. Youth tennis and the Memorijal Dario Cimador handball tournament fill the sports grounds, and classic cars line up on Istarska ulica. In the late afternoon the Udruga Boletus Bujštine cooks its mushroom pot by the magnolias, and the Italian community of Buje holds its briškula and trešeta card tournament.
• Sunday: clay pigeon shooting at Rozolija from 8:00 and a meeting of old Tomos motorbikes on Istarska ulica. Then the afternoon belongs to the krostata, the parade and the tombola.
• Every evening: concerts on several squares at once, among them Trg Slobode, Trg J. B. Tita and Istarska ulica. In 2025 the town counted 13 concerts over the three days, from pop and rock to klapa singing.

Sunday brings the krostata, the floats and the tombola

Sunday afternoon plays out on Trg J. B. Tita. At 16:00 a krostata, the local tart, is cut and sold for charity. It carries as many grapes as the year has: 2,023 grapes in 2023, 2,024 in 2024 and 2,025 in 2025. At 17:00 the allegorical parade sets off along Istarska ulica towards the square. At 18:30 the great tombola begins on the same square.

The tombola is the oldest part of the feast and draws the biggest crowd. In 2025 the full card, the tombola, paid €10,000, the cinquina €2,500, the quaterna €800 and the tombolin €500. In 2026 the first prize reached €13,000. In 2024 presenter David Šav called the numbers in four languages. A klapa usually closes the night after the draw: Klapa Sv. Juraj in 2024, Klapa Cambi in 2025 and Klapa Rišpet in 2026.

Malvazija, teran and muškat grow on the white soil

Buje lies in what Istria's tourist board calls the most famous wine-growing part of the peninsula. Malvazija, teran and muškat grow here on the white soil, the bijela zemlja, the town says. On the 2025 wine walk, visitors tasted wines from six local wineries, each glass with a small snack, all free of charge. Buje opens its cellars again in late May, around the feast of St Servulus. The town's 2026 calendar of fair days listed open cellar days from 24 to 31 May.

Getting to Buje and parking

Buje stands on a hill about 10 km inland from the Adriatic and was once called the sentinel of Istria. Umag on the coast is the nearest larger base for the weekend. During the festival the old town centre closes to cars. In 2026 Istarska ulica, Trg J. B. Tita, Ulica 1. svibnja, Trg Slobode and part of Ulica Garibaldi closed from Friday at 8:00 until 4:00 on Monday morning. Diversions ran via Ulica Brolo and the state roads DC 200 and DC 300. Drivers park below the old town and walk up.

Tips for the festival weekend

• Sunday is the main day. Arrive by 16:00 for the krostata and find a place on Istarska ulica before the parade at 17:00.
• Saturday night draws the biggest concert crowd. In 2026 Lidija Bačić was billed on Trg J. B. Tita at 23:00.
• Friday suits wine lovers. The cellar walk starts at 18:30 on Trg Slobode.
• Pack a jacket. Rain kept the crowds small on the first two days in 2024, and in 2026 the forecast rain cancelled two Friday concerts. That year the town announced that all food tents would be covered.
• The wine walk and the late concerts call for a sober driver or a taxi back to the coast.
• The detailed programme appears on buje.hr shortly before the festival. In 2024, 2025 and 2026 the town posted it five to seven days ahead.

Dani grožđa 2027

As of 20 October 2026, the town of Buje and the tourist board have not announced dates for 2027. The last three editions ran from Friday to Sunday in mid-September: 13 to 15 September 2024, 19 to 21 September 2025 and 18 to 20 September 2026. The town set the 2026 dates months ahead in its annual decision on fair days, which Glas Istre reported on 19 March 2026. The 2027 dates will appear on buje.hr and in our list of festival dates for 2027.

Dani grožđa 2026 in review

The 120th Dani grožđa took place from 18 to 20 September 2026. Its poster showed a bunch of grapes made of fingerprints, one for each person and generation behind the festival. Presenting the programme on Radio Eurostar, Valter Bassanese said that 120 years earlier the festival had marked the start of the harvest. In 2026 an early harvest, helped by sunny and warm weather, meant the festival marked its end.

Rain was forecast for Friday, so on 17 September the town cancelled the concerts by Miach and the young singers of Mali veliki mikrofon. In its recap the town listed Malvazija Band, MisterG Dee Jay, Zemljotres, Rewin3 Wasco, Lidija Bačić, Alfa Time Band and Klapa Rišpet among the acts. Teams played football, tennis, handball, volleyball and bocce, and clubs showed karate and wrestling. The programme also included Wine and Paint, poetry with Loredana Bogliun in the Ethnographic Museum and an apiary from the Bujština beekeepers' association. Glas Istre reported a record crowd.

On Sunday the krostata made with 2,026 grapes raised €1,713.98 for charity. The parade carried scenes of the harvest, the vineyards and village life of the past. For the tombola the town counted a record 8,180 cards sold, while Glas Istre reported 8,177. The first prize of €13,000 went to a player from Portorož in Slovenia. The cinquina paid €3,000, the quaterna €1,000 and the tombolin €750.

Hill villages and the coast around Buje

Istria's tourist board names Grožnjan, Momjan and Završje as the medieval hill towns of the Buje area. Momjan celebrates Martinje, the feast of the young wine, in November. Further inland, Motovun keeps its ramparts above the truffle forest, and Tinjan holds its pršut fair, ISAP, in October. On the coast, Umag has its old town and the Savudrija lighthouse.