The Altuna cider house in Urnieta now has its first Euskal Sagardoa Designation of Origin cider made from apples grown in its own orchard in the bottle. The house unveiled it on Wednesday 2 July at an event held on its premises. It is the cider from the 2024 harvest and, according to the cider house, the project grew out of combining family tradition with a commitment to the future of cider.

Four generations at Galarraga

Cider has always been made at Galarraga, the family farmhouse in the Lategi neighbourhood. Xabier Altuna’s great-grandparents already made it, though only for the household. The step up to professional production came with his grandparents, Joxe and Milagros, who created the Altuna Sagardoa brand. His parents, Santiago and Mari Carmen, kept the business going and have prepared the handover: today it is Xabier who runs the cider house alongside them, with the fourth generation at the head of a farmhouse more than a century old. On its blog, the house dates the start of its cider making to 1904.

The change of generation has brought an update to how the orchard is tended and how the cider is made, without losing what was learnt from parents and grandparents. The family sees the Designation of Origin and local apples as the core of the house’s future.

Three hectares and four varieties

The Altunas grow some three hectares of apple trees around the farmhouse and plan to plant more in the coming years. Four varieties dominate the estate: Urtebi Handi, Urtebi Txiki, Moko and Goikoetxe. With these, and a few other native apples, the house has completed this first Designation of Origin cider.

Altuna opens for lunch and dinner during the txotx season (when cider is drunk straight from the cask). The rest of the year it sells bottled cider at the farmhouse itself and in shops, bars and gastronomic societies around the area, and it has added online sales with home delivery.

The house is not an isolated case in the town. Urnieta had several tolare farmhouses, the large cider-press houses built in the 15th and 16th centuries, when cider consumption grew strongly. Today it has six apple growers within the Euskal Sagardoa Designation of Origin, with 26 hectares of orchard between them.

Sources

  • Noticias de Gipuzkoa, N.G.: “La sidrería Altuna presenta una sidra con cosecha propia”, 2 July 2025. Launch of the first Designation of Origin cider made from its own apples, event at the cider house, century-old farmhouse and fourth generation.
  • El Diario Vasco, María Cortés: “Altuna, en la selecta lista de la Denominación de Origen Euskal Sagardoa”, 12 July 2025. Read in the Sagardoetxea press archive. Galarraga farmhouse, family history, hectares, varieties, sales and figures for Urnieta.
  • Altuna Sagardotegia, Xabier Altuna: “Historia eta sorrera”, 13 April 2011. The cider house’s blog: cider since 1904, Galarraga farmhouse in the Lategi neighbourhood.