HOW WE STARTED
It was great-grandfather Agapito Goikoetxea Zapian, principally a crop and livestock farmer, who first made cider for his own personal consumption. He started with three barrels that he would fill with a brew of his own making and share with friends from the surrounding farmhouses.
The cider-making tradition was continued by his son José Joaquin Goicoetxea and his wife Josefa Antonia Iturralde Ubetagoyena, farmers like Agapito who similarly only made cider for their own consumption.
However, it was around that time that they started loading small amounts of cider onto a cart for delivery to friends in the nearby farmhouses and sale at the local markets. (Grandfather) José Joaquin Goicoetxea's daughter, Josefa Goicoetxea Iturralde, and her husband Pedro Ocaño Eceiza, continued the tradition and started selling glasses of cider to visitors. The people who would frequent the farmhouse at that time were either friends or customers coming to buy their year's supply of cider. They would bring a dish of food and stand eating it while drinking. Having chosen their favourite barrel, they would later bring along their own bottles in large baskets or any other way they could and help to bottle their purchase.
The tasting would start in January and the bottling in April. The cider house was the only meeting place for "baserritarras" or farmworkers, and they would often bet on the fastest oxen, who was best with the scythe, at cutting tree trunks, etc., activities now known as "Rural Sports".
17th century document making the first mention of Petritegi farmhouse