National Geographic Traveller (UK) - Food
EXPERIENCE THE BASQUE COUNTRY’S BEST CIDER HOUSES On the outskirts of San Sebastián, the town of Astigarraga is home to historic cider cellars and some decidedly rowdy rituals. Words: Mike Maceacheran. Photographs: Markel Redondo
Saturday lunchtime at Gurutzeta
Sagardotegia, in a cavernous room overlooking orchards of fallen, rust-red apples, and everything is about to get cockeyed. A warning shout of “Txotx!” triggers a reaction in the tightly packed crowd as though a starting gun has just been fired. Seconds later, a toothpicksized spigot is plucked from the end of a gigantic chestnut barrel.
Suddenly, a golden arc of apple cider gushes from the wooden cask like frothing surf, coating the floor with drink as revellers rush to fill their glasses. Cider sprays onto sleeves, skirts and shoes as each tumbler fizzes with apricot-coloured alcohol. Soon, nearly every barrel is tapped, giving the drinkers their choice of the fermented blends, from intensely bitter to full bodied and floral. As each glass is filled, another is discarded, the remains sloshed onto the stone floor, not in disappointment but in anticipation of the next drink to come. It’s a routine that creates chaos and jubilation in equal measure. “We say, ‘Gutxi baina sarri’,” explains tour guide and former txotxero (the person responsible for tapping the barrels) Julen Gorostiaga, as he tops up his glass. “A little, but often.”
A slight haze kicks in by glass four — or is it five? — and the warehouse fills with the softly lit graininess of an afternoon that’s getting late. The cellar carries the threat of a party that might not end any time soon. On the wooden tables and benches all around us lies the aftermath of today’s lunch — gnawed T-bones and bloody napkins, cheese rinds and walnut shells. “It’s common to split them with your forehead,” says Julen, shrugging off the stupidity. “Too much cider can make you crazy, I think.” Outside, sunlight mellows from yellow to red, like fruit ripening. Back in the cellar, they begin to prepare for dinner, when the txotx ceremony will begin in earnest all over again.
In the Basque region of northern Spain family-run sagardotegi (cider houses) are central to community life and identity. During my visit to the town of Astigarraga, on the fringes of San Sebastián, I feel very much the odd man out — as confused by the centuriesold traditions on display as I am by the deeply bacchanalian excess of it all. Many sagardotegi are only open from January to April, following the autumn apple harvest — meaning there’s a real sense of pent-up demand among the locals.
Cider making was first documented in the Basque Country in the 11th century, and the hills cradling San Sebastián are today still scattered with jewel-green orchards, home to an almost incomprehensible 500 apple varieties. In the 15th century, the locals came up with the smart idea of replacing drinking water on board whaling ships with cheap, natural cider, and the stock of the sagardotegi soared. By the 18th century there were some 2,000 farms across the Gipuzkoa region alone. When time was called on the Atlantic whale harvest, it led to the eventual crash of this
prized crop, yet the Basque Country remains a rock pool of tradition, and today, 80 sagardotegi remain defiantly open. Astigarraga, with 18 rumpled farm orchards, is still something of a cider Shangri-la.
Convention dictates that any visit to a Basque cider house should start with the txotx ritual. So, when I visit the dimly lit Petritegi Sagardotegia the following lunchtime, I’m welcomed by the reassuring sound of a chestnut barrel being unplugged to a roar from sun-drowsy drinkers. Astigarraga’s largest cider house is replete with giant walk-through barrels and gigantic recreations of medieval apple crushers. Here, the txotx ceremony is legendary — the moment the cider is released from the barrel there’s a blurring shudder as the diners stand, sample and sit back down en masse, draining hundreds of litres between them. “Cider is the same price as water here,” says Jon Torre Gurutzealde, Petritegi’s comanager, raising a glass with me. “It’s our Coca-cola.”
My final night in Astigarraga calls for something special: Lizeaga Sagardotegia, a timber-framed cellar dating back to 1523 — and the point from which cider barrels were traditionally floated down the Urumea River on rafts en route to the Bay of Biscay. The multicourse menu here is intended to prevent rosycheeked cider devotees from keeling over, and, following a ramekin of baby chistorra (semicured sausage), the first course is a half-moon tortilla de bacalao (salt cod omelette)
— a tribute to the seafarers who put San Sebastián on the map. Next comes a holy trinity of salt cod with candied peppers, an extremely bloody, charcoal-fired steak and a plate of idiazábal (a sheep’s-milk cheese), beaded quince jelly and wrinkled nuts. This is counterstyle cooking that hasn’t changed in centuries, complete with no-nonsense service.
Eventually, the food stops coming, at which point co-owner Axier Lizeaga turns to me, pointing to my empty glass. “All done?” he asks, sceptically. I might well be, for now. But the sagardoteg tradition is one that seems worth returning for. It’s not just the seasonspecific menu, or the sheer strangeness of the txtox spectacle. It’s the getting up and down from the table. The meeting new people. The conversation. The cider-damp shoes. The little but often.
HOW TO DO IT Toursbylocals offers the four-hour Traditional Cider House Tour from £315 for four people. Sagardoa Route, the Basque Country Cider House Association, runs cellar tastings and guided tours from €44 (£37) per person. toursbylocals.com sagardoa.eus sansebastianturismoa.eus