The Big Spill: 600,000 Gallons Of Red Wine Floods Tiny Portuguese Town
People used to say that the streets in America were paved with gold. That was never really the case. However, it appears that the streets of a town in Portugal are actually paved with red wine. Well, at least for a day.
Folks in the small town of São Lourenço do Bairro must have been stunned by the sight of wine flowing through the streets on Sunday (9/10). According to Delish, two tanks from the Levira Distillery spilled 600,000 gallons of wine throughout the village. That’s enough to fill an entire Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Video of the incident (below) shows a veritable river of red rushing down a hill in the tiny Portuguese town. Luckily, the fire department was able to divert the wine away from the actual river. That could have created a much bigger environmental problem. Instead, the wine was collected and taken to a wastewater treatment plant.
No one in the village of fewer than 3,000 people was injured, but a lot of wine was lost. One social media user commented: “This would have lasted a whole 10 years, such a waste.” Levira Distillery apologized on Facebook and is taking “full responsibility for the costs associated with damage cleanup and repair, with crews available to do it immediately.”
My wife and I just watched Dan Buettner’s amazing Netflix series, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. The Blue Zones are the five areas around with world with the highest concentration of centenarians. Buettner also wrote a cookbook called The Blue Zones Kitchen. In it, he writes that there are really only four beverages worth consuming for longevity: water, coffee, tea, and red wine. I’ve pretty much given up all other beverages, but I can’t enjoy my red wine if it’s running through the streets of Portugal.
Verdadeiro rio de vinho em Anadia.
— _o_cabra_da_peste (@nuno_mar) September 11, 2023
Calamidade! pic.twitter.com/LejLz17XuK
