On Sunday, September 10, 2023, São Lourenço do Bairro witnessed something no one will forget.
Two tanks at the Levira distillery burst, and 2.2 million liters of red wine—the equivalent of an Olympic swimming pool—flowed down Rua de Cima like a river. The first tank ruptured due to a structural failure, and the force of all that liquid brought down the second one. The wine even reached the basement of a house.
There were no injuries, but there was cause for alarm: the wine was flowing toward the Certima River. Firefighters from Anadia diverted the flow into a field before it reached the riverbed. The distillery, founded in 1923, apologized and covered all cleanup and repair costs. The soaked soil will be taken to a treatment plant.
The tanks were part of a plan to manage the surplus wine: production in the EU rose by 4% while consumption in Portugal fell by 34%. The video went viral on social media, and someone wrote: “Are volunteers being accepted to go dry the streets?”.