On Sunday 28 September Astigarraga brought the 25th edition of Sagar Uzta to a close, the festival with which the town celebrates the cider mills getting back to work. Foru square was too small for the crowds, according to El Diario Vasco’s report, which gives the organisers’ impression: “more people than ever” had come.

A thousand bottles and 1,500 kilos of apples

The same paper gives the figures for the day: 1,500 kilos of apples were handled and the cider tasting got through nearly a thousand bottles, brought from nine cider houses that the report does not name. Kronika had already given that amount of fruit for the festival as a whole.

Sunday’s programme began at 9.30 with a morning call by Txirriskla Txistulari Taldea. Next, the families who had signed up picked apples in the orchard of the Sagardoetxea museum and came down to the square in a kalejira (street parade), where Sagardoetxea and Goldea Herri Kirol Batzordea had set up a “farmhouse” to show how the job is done: picking the fruit, crushing it and pressing it. The report highlights precisely the traditional-style pressing and the crushing by kirikoketa (pounding with wooden mallets), with the youngest children having fun while the organisers emptied sacks of apples onto the ground.

All around there were stalls selling cider and local produce, with vegetables from the kitchen garden, cheese, quince paste and Rafa Gorrotxategi’s desserts, as well as chorizo pintxos and pork loin with peppers, trikitixa music and dancing. According to the programme, the morning closed with the sagar dantza (apple dance) by the Astigar group and, at 13.30, the public toast with the first must of the 2025 harvest to the sound of the txalaparta. Two pelota matches were billed for the afternoon, one for youth players and one for professionals.

Pintxos, Breton Pomme and dancers from Boiro

The festival had got under way on Thursday 25 with the competition for pintxos made with apples in the town’s bars. The txapela (the beret awarded to winners) went to the Ikatza bar, according to Kronika.

Saturday 27 began with the Sagar-Bira, a family walk along the Santiagomendi cider route. The new feature this year was the Pomme, a traditional dessert from Brittany made with apples and apple juice, slowly cooked in a copper cauldron of about a hundred litres. It was made in Foru square, from 10.00 to 19.00, by the Breton group Les Ramaougeries, with a workshop for families in the morning. In the afternoon, the dancers of Pedra da Aroña, from Boiro (Galicia), and those of Astigar were due to hold an exchange in the same square.

There was also a smaller competition: AEK Euskaltegia invited people, for one euro, to guess how much a sack full of apples weighed. Eneko Diego came closest and took home a case of Zapiain cider and a Lekungarai cheese.

Sagar Uzta is part of Udazken Zaporez, the programme with which Astigarraga devotes the period from 18 September to 2 November to apples.

Sources

  • El Diario Vasco, Juan F. Manjarrés: “Mil botellas de sidra por Sagar Uzta”, 28 September 2025. Read in the Sagardoetxea press archive. Report on the day: turnout, 1,500 kilos of apples, around a thousand bottles from nine cider houses, the cider press, kirikoketa and stalls.
  • Kronika.eus: “Sagarraren Jaia ospatuko dute bihar Astigarragan, Sagar Uztaren barruan”, 27 September 2025. Read in the Sagardoetxea press archive. Winner of the pintxo competition (Ikatza), 1,500-kilo forecast and programme.
  • Noticias de Gipuzkoa, Aitziber Muga: “Astigarraga elaborará el domingo el primer mosto de la cosecha 2025”, 26 September 2025. Preview: Breton Pomme and the cauldron, exchange with Boiro, Sunday’s organisers and pelota.
  • El Diario Vasco, Juan F. Manjarrés: “Las manzanas son para el otoño”, 25 September 2025. Read in the Sagardoetxea press archive. Launch of Udazken Zaporez and of the 25th edition.
  • El Diario Vasco, Juan F. Manjarrés: “Sagar Uzta, destacada cita con el mundo de la manzana y la sidra este domingo en Foru plaza”, 27 September 2025. Read in the Sagardoetxea press archive. Detailed programme for Sunday.
  • El Diario Vasco: “Eneko Diegok irabazi du Sagar Uztan AEK Euskaltegiak antolatuko lehiaketa”, 4 October 2025. Read in the Sagardoetxea press archive. AEK’s sack-of-apples competition.
  • Sagardoaren Lurraldea: “XXV. Sagar Uzta 2025, fiesta de la manzana en Astigarraga”, 22 August 2025. Official programme for the three days.
  • Noticias de Gipuzkoa, Arnaitz Rubio: “Feria de la cosecha de la manzana en Astigarraga”, 28 September 2025. Photo gallery from Sunday.