Home / The thirty days / Galicia and Asturias / A sidra pressing in a llagar
Apple mill, screw press, and a stone floored shed
Apples ground, pressed and racked: reserve a pressing day in an Asturian llagar
From $154 per person, 10:00 to 17:00, and this one needs four before it runs, so send a second date when you write. It sits in Galicia and Asturias, inland from the coast where the apple orchards start. Seven hours of actual work: fruit in at one end of the shed, cloudy liquid into chestnut casks at the other.
| Starts from | Villaviciosa, Spain |
|---|---|
| Hours | 10:00 to 17:00 |
| Runs when | needs four |
| One person pays | from $154 |
| Part of | Galicia and Asturias |
From the orchard floor to the press
The fruit is already in when you arrive, in heaps on the shed floor, because picking happens on its own schedule and the press does not wait for visitors. The morning is grinding: apples fed into the mill, pomace shovelled and layered between boards until the stack is as tall as it will go. Then the screw comes down, slowly, over hours, and the shed smells of nothing but apple. Juice runs into the stone channel and from there into chestnut casks washed the week before. The afternoon is racking, topping up and cleaning, which is most of what this work actually is. Late on, someone will show you the long pour from overhead, which is a way of putting air into the liquid and is harder than it looks.
Standing, lifting, and getting wet
Seven hours on a wet stone floor, standing almost throughout, with a lot of shovelling if you want it and none if you do not. Pomace is heavy and awkward rather than dangerous. You will get juice on your sleeves and your boots will be wet by two o'clock, so bring a change and wear nothing you mind about. The shed is unheated and October in Asturias is cold and damp; a fleece under a waterproof is about right. The one hard rule is the press itself: hands stay off the threads and the boards while the screw is moving, and the family will say so once and expect it to stick.
Seven hours, and what they cost
From $154 per person. That holds seven hours at the llagar, the work and the explanation in English, gloves and an apron, and the food eaten standing at midday, which is bread, cheese and whatever is cooked in the house. It does not hold your travel to the valley, your beds, or anything you choose to take away. Alcohol is not part of the figure, and this office neither sells nor recommends any: what is poured in that shed is the family's business and yours. Nothing is paid to us and no card details are taken here. The llagar invoices you directly, in its own name, and settles a commission afterwards.
Awkward things people ask about this day
- Does this run outside the pressing season?
- No. Grinding and pressing run from about the middle of October to the middle of December, and there is no honest version of this day in March. Some places will show you an idle press and call it a visit; we will not book you one. Ask in spring and we will point you at another day in the same region rather than sell you an empty shed with a story attached.
- Is anyone going to make us drink?
- No, and nobody will think less of you. The day is about how the liquid is made, and several people who book it do not drink at all. The long pour is shown because it is part of the craft and because it is genuinely difficult to do. What anybody swallows afterwards is their own affair. The office takes no view on it, sells none of it, and does not build the day around it.
- Can we bring children?
- Over twelve, yes, and they usually end up shovelling. Under twelve is a no from the llagar rather than from us: the floor is wet stone, the mill has moving parts, and the shed is not laid out to keep small children away from either. If you are travelling with younger children we can look at a day in the same region that suits them, and we will say plainly if there is not one.
The other five days near this one
Two days that look close on a map are not always joinable in one week, and the office will say so plainly instead of selling you the pair anyway.
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from $180 per person needs eight -
from $214 per person private only -
from $122 per person runs whatever the numbers -
from $192 per person needs eight -
from $134 per person runs whatever the numbers
Hold this day and add others to it
Booking a day here means the office holds your place with whoever runs that day on the ground, and their invoice reaches you directly once the dates stop moving.