Cider house rules in Basque Country

Descripción

No one really tells you what to do when you first arrive at a "sagardotegi", or traditional Basque cider house, especially if you don't speak Basque. You're simply given a glass, led to one of the long wooden tables in a vast room and immediately served a plate of chorizo, followed by a cod omelet. It's left up to you to figure out how to get a drink.

astigarraga sidrería bereziartua gastronomía sidrería lizeaga sidra sagardoetxea sidrería manzana camino de santiago txotx temporada del txotx

Ficha

• Autor: Jason Wilson
• Fuente: Financial Review
• Fecha: 2018-04-03
• Clasificación: 2.0. Sidrería
• Tipo documento: Prensa
• Fondo: Sagardoetxea Museoa
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• Código: NA-008001

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My brother, Tyler, and I learned this on our first night in Astigarraga, 15 minutes south-east of San Sebastián, which happens to be the cider capital of Spanish Basque Country. In this town of just under 6000 people, there are an astonishing 19 cider houses.

We were spending several days here during the traditional cider season that runs through to April. With Spanish-style ciders becoming more popular among American and other cider makers and enthusiasts, I wanted to see what they tasted like at the source.

At Garziategi, a sagardotegi in a big stone barn on the outskirts of town, we learned that when a guy with a bucket yells "txotx!" (pronounced "choach"), he's about to open the tap on one of dozens of huge 13,000-litre barrels, shooting out a thin stream of cider. You're supposed to stand up from your meal, get in line and hold your glass at just the right angle to catch a few fingers of cider from that hissing stream. You drink the small amount in your glass and then follow the cider maker to the next barrel.

Thinking it was a free-for-all, my first faux pas was coming at the stream from the wrong side and essentially butting in line. Then, I couldn't quite figure out how to hold my glass so that the cider hit at the right angle, to "break" the liquid and create foam. Thankfully, the crowd at the Basque cider house was very forgiving. A kind white-haired man in a sweater, whose group was eating next to us, waved me along with him at the next shout of "txotx!"

We eventually learned on our cider house tour that advice was forthcoming if you sought it out. "Take it here, at an angle," said Igór, our tour guide at Petritegi, another sagardotegi just down the road from Garziategi (the suffix "tegi" means "place of").
Easier said than done

I did as Igór said, allowing the stream to hit the very rim of my glass, spraying a little bit on the floor, just as the locals do. (I got the hang of it on my fourth glass.) Some older sagardotegi have worn grooves in the cement floors from years of streaming cider.

The point, Igór told us, was to make sure the cider has good "txinparta," or foam; if the cider is healthy, that foam should dissipate quickly. The cider in the glass disappears quickly too. The flavours are crisp and acidic, and usually bone dry — nothing like the cloying, over-carbonated product you too often find on tap in the United States.

As txotx season rolls on, more than 15,000 cider enthusiasts can crowd into Astigarraga's cider houses each weekend. Txotx season follows the apple harvest of September and October, then fermentation of the cider in early winter. "The cider in the barrel is still evolving" in late January, Igór said. "If you come back in two months and taste the same barrel, it will have evolved."

In Basque Country, most cider is made by spontaneous fermentation and no added commercial yeast, similar to natural winemaking. Once the season ends in April, whatever is left in the barrel is bottled.

The annual ritual harks back to an era when cider makers would invite clients, perhaps innkeepers, restaurateurs or the famed gastronomic societies of San Sebastián, to taste and choose which casks they wanted to purchase.

"Here, cider is not just an alcoholic beverage," Igór said. "It's a way of life." Petritegi, for instance, dates to 1526.

Over the years, a meal became part of the ritual. Every cider house serves the same basic menu for €30 ($48): chorizo, cod omelet, roasted cod with green peppers, thick, medium-rare chuleta steak, Basque cheese (such as Idiazabal) served with walnuts and quince paste. And all the cider you can drink.

The cider house ritual is just one of many Basque Country cultural touchstones that make this autonomous coastal region a very different place than the rest of Spain.

"Twenty years ago, there weren't chairs," Igór said. "The food was just served in the middle of the table." While Petritegi did indeed offer chairs — and a beautiful hake in garlic and oil as an alternative to the cod — we were served roughly the same menu in all seven cider houses we visited, and we stood and ate in three of them.

In Astigarraga, we took a lovely, steep and tiring hike up to an old church that had been a stop on the ancient Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. As we wandered past orchards overlooking the bay of San Sebastián, our guide, Ainize, told us stories of the Basque golden age

In the 16th century, Basque ships were built around the cider barrels, and each sailor drank up to three litres of cider a day to fend off scurvy. The result, according to lore, was that the Basque fishermen and whale hunters were the healthiest and most renowned on the sea, fishing far from their home waters. Their range was so famous that, only two years ago, the remote Westfjords of Iceland repealed a 400-year-old law that ordered the murder of any Basque visitor on sight.

"The 16th century was the golden age of cider, but cider-making is much older than that," Ainize said. "The original meaning of txotx, in our language, is 'to speak.' Now it's an invitation to drink cider."
Apple heaven

At Petritegi, Igór took us through the orchards where we learned about Basque varieties of apples like Goikoetxe, Moko, Txalaka, Gezamina and Urtebi — a far cry from Granny Smith and Golden Delicious. A Basque cider can be made from more than 100 varieties — some bitter, some acidic, some sweet — and 40 to 50 might be blended in a single cider. We were told that one kilo of apples will make one bottle. We were also told by a number of people that apples are sometimes trucked in from Normandy or Galicia to keep up with demand.

In the town centre, Sidrería Bereziartua operates a tasting room. "Cider is deep in our culture," said Mikel, our pourer. "We don't even know when we started making it."

Ciders using the official denomination of origin, Euskal Sagardoa, created in 2016, must be made entirely from Basque apples. When he poured Bereziartua's Euskal Sagardoa, Mikel said, "If you want to take one bottle, drink this one." Then he poured a cider with a Gorenak label, one that can use foreign apples in the blend — but must adhere to strict standards and be approved by official tasters. "If you want to drink three bottles, you take this one," he said.

Buying bottles at the cider houses in Basque Country is relatively inexpensive. I never saw one priced above €10, and most were under €5.

On our last evening, we went to Lizeaga, a sagardotegi in a 16th-century farmhouse that's next to Garziategi. Our reservation at one of the long tables was marked with a long baguette. There were no chairs. After the opening plate of chorizo, we strolled into the barrel room. Gabriel, the cider maker, was opening the ancient taps with what looked like pliers. He went from cask to cask, and we followed along, dashing back into the dining room in between for the omelet, cod and steak.

After the eighth or ninth txotx, I thought I had finally got it down pat, like a true Basque. But on the next txotx, when I put my glass under the stream, Gabriel gently corrected my form: "No, no," he said, "have the cider hit here." No matter. Soon enough he tapped another barrel, and there was another chance to learn.

NEED TO KNOW

The cider museum Sagardoaren Lurraldea (Kale Nagusia, 48, Astigarraga; sagardoarenlurraldea.eus/en), is a great resource, with tastings and walking tours. Visitors can also book advanced reservations for local cider houses on the museum website.

Where to drink cider

Zapiain, Kale Nagusia 96, zapiain.eus/en/
Garziategi, Martutene Pasealekua 139, gartziategi.com/en/
Lizeaga, Paseo de Martutene, 139, lizeaga.eus/en/lizeaga/
Petritegi, Petritegi Bidea, petritegi.com/en. Offers tastings and tours, as well as lunch and dinner.
In Hernani, a 20-minute walk from Astigarraga: Zelaia, Martindegi Auzoa, zelaia.es/en

Where to stay

Pensión Txingurri Donostia Ibilbidea, Astigarraga, pensiontxingurri.com/es/pension-txingurri-astigarraga