Crested Butte’s 23rd Annual Vinotok Honors Eastern European Roots & Autumn Equinox

The autumn equinox, a time of balance between day and night, heralds in the celebration of Vinotok in Crested Butte, Colo. Meaning “fall wine festival” in Slovenian, Vinotok culminates after several days of celebrating on Sept. 20 and commemorates the bounty of the summer harvest and gathering of the community before the long winter ahead.

It is a time of village feasting, of forgetting the woes of yesterday and honoring traditional Eastern European roots. In the midst of the celebration from Sept. 17 – 20 is a colorful array of medieval characters, a street theatre performance, storytelling, and music.

How Vinotok Started
The origins of Vinotok began when creator and now “Godmother” of the event, Marcie Telander, sat around the pot belly stove at Tony’s Conoco, listening to the “old-timers” of Crested Butte tell stories from their native lands of Austria, Hungary, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Italy and Slovenia.

A common thread emerged. Many of these cultures had a wine festival in the fall when, as they were putting down wine for the upcoming year, the old wine from the previous year had to be drunk. They roasted a goat, told tales and danced polka. A fire was always present, a vestige of ancient cultures asking the sun to not stay away too long. It was typically on the fall equinox, a time of planetary balance, and in those cold countries, the start of the new year. They celebrated what they harvested—the hay, children and stories of those who had created roots in a new land.

The Celebration Today
· Today, 23 years later, the festival begins with these roots in storytelling, gathering again around the potbelly stove of Tony’s Conoco, now the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum, to hear the tales of an older Crested Butte on Wed., Sept. 17 from 7 – 8:30 p.m. On Sept. 15 and 16, storytelling workshops will be held to help individuals compose their public performances throughout the week. Details about the workshops will be available soon.

· Liar’s Night at The Eldo is a raucous Thursday evening full of tall tales and whoppers, indicative of the adventuresome spirit of the community. It is here the Green Man, the town’s symbol of fertility and virility, and considered the most desirable single man in the community, is announced. Liar’s Night begins at 8 p.m. and costs $4 for storytellers and those in costumes and $7 for all others.

· At the Community Feast on Sept. 19, a pig is roasted as neighbors share a meal of harvest vegetables and wine and are entertained by local poets. The feast begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Town Park and costs $10 for adults and $5 for children.

· Weeks before the celebration, community school children craft “Grump Boxes,” creatively decorated boxes set about town. Townspeople write down their “Grumps,” the grievances they want to forget at the change of seasons in order to move into the new year with a clean slate. These boxes are then stuffed into the Grump itself, a 20-foot tall grimacing effigy welded into existence by the skilled hands of local metal artist Andy Bamberg. The Grump plays a major role in Saturday evening’s activities.

· The Saturday of Vinotok is the high point of the celebration. A cast of medieval characters featuring maidens in bustiers and flowing gowns and ribbons, representing the 12 months of the year, accompanied by torchbearers and flag bearers “mum” out in the streets and into restaurants with drums and horns, cymbals and flutes, singing harvest songs, dancing and inviting all to participate in the evening’s festivities. Begins at 5 p.m.

· As night falls, a street theatre production is held in front of The Eldo on Elk Avenue at 7:30 p.m. In a drama honoring the cycles of nature and the imbalances of our modern world, characters are the Harvest Mother, a tremendously pregnant woman from town; the Earth Dragon, representing nature; and Sir Hapless, the symbol of technology. The Grump is put on trial, the sacrificial scapegoat for the discordance between nature and technology. Citizens decide to find him guilty, and then proceed to the town crossroads to burn him and all of the grievances of the year. The Grump goes up in flames in an enormous bonfire that happens at the four-way stop near the visitor center at 8:30 p.m. Now with a clean slate, the townspeople look forward to a new harvest of winter snow.

“Fire celebrations are part of the most ancient of traditions, especially in places that have cold winters and short days. It also gives participants the chance to see the faces of their neighbors around the bonfire,” Telander says. “These celebrations shed light on moving into winter and tell the sun not to forget us.”

For more information about Vinotok, contact Molly Murfee at (970) 349-0947.