On Sunday Astigarraga celebrated the big day of Sagar Uzta, the festival with which one of Gipuzkoa’s towns with the strongest cider tradition welcomes the apple harvest and the start of work in the cider presses. Plaza Foru filled with locals and visitors, and nothing was missing: cider, dances, pintxos and, of course, apples.

From orchard to glass

This is the 26th edition of an event organised by Sagardoaren Lurraldea as part of the Udazken Zaporez programme, with the aim of taking apple culture out onto the streets in the middle of the picking season. The organisation’s manager, Leire Alkorta, summed it up at the launch: the idea is to see the apple as part of the town’s culture, heritage and way of life.

The day started early, with a dawn serenade by txistularis (Basque pipe and drum players) and a family apple-picking session in the orchard of the Sagardoetxea museum, with around 160 people signed up. From there, a kalejira (street procession) to the town centre. In the square, Goldea Herri Kirol Batzordea (a Basque rural sports committee) and the museum itself recreated the whole traditional process in front of the public: gathering the fruit, crushing it and pressing it.

All around, a market with produce from local farmhouses, displays and tastings of apple varieties, grafting demonstrations and a drawing workshop for the youngest.

Ten cider houses in the square

Visitors could taste ciders and musts from ten local cider houses: Alorrenea, Astarbe, Bereziartua, Etxeberria, Gurutzeta, Lizeaga, Mendizabal, Oiarbide, Petritegi and Zapiain.

At one o’clock came the display of sagar dantza (apple dance) and kirikoketa by the Astigar group, and at half past one the most eagerly awaited moment: the Topa Herrikoia, the community toast with the first must of the 2026 harvest, to the sound of the txalaparta (a Basque percussion instrument). The afternoon was given over to pelota.

A week of apples

The festival had begun on Thursday with a competition for apple-based pintxos in the town’s bars. The winner was the Bukoi bar, on Kale Nagusia (the main street), ahead of Beti Goxo and Zipotza, according to a jury of two lecturers from the Basque Culinary Center. On Saturday it was the turn of the Sagar-Bira, a guided walk through the orchards of Santiagomendi for which some thirty people had signed up.

The toast comes in a year of few apples. Euskal Sagardoa’s producers estimate that they will pick around 1.5 million kilos, 30% less than forecast and 65% less than last year: on top of the natural off-year cycle (a year of low yield) came heat and lack of rain, which brought a lot of fruit down from the trees, especially on the coast.

Sources