Galicia is making great efforts to recover the culture of cider. From small cideries to large companies, they are producing cider again. Although cider making almost disappeared in the past decades, they kept growing cider apples and supplying other producers such as Asturias and Basque Country.
The truth is that they have the most important thing to make cider: apples. A Estrada, a municipality of about 20,000 inhabitants and a large surface, produces 2 million kilos of apples a year and exports to other areas. Many of them are from organic farming and are bought by Maeloc, the cider brand launched by the beer giant Estrella Galicia.
A Estrada is part of the Ciderlands network. In recent years they have organized a successful cider fair and launched a cider route. On the occasion of the talk and the international cider tasting that I offered in September, I had the opportunity to visit 3 of the 4 micro-cideries in the area: Ribela, Peroja, Rabiosa and Camino.
Although they are still very small, the passion they put into each liter of cider is enormous. From what I have tasted I can say that they are natural, artisan and wild ciders with a strong character. Long live the Galician cider culture!
