CANARY MAGAZINE

We spoke with Ángel Domínguez Ponce, about his winery «El Lagar de Valleseco» which this year 2020 presented its wines in the «X International Cider Show of GALA ASTURIES XIXÓN» (SISGA'20), obtaining three awards: «Gold Medal for Semidry Sparkling Wine "," Silver Medal for Sparkling Brut "," Silver Medal for Natural Cider "Who knows if the future of the islands will be able to return to Canarian agriculture thanks to these examples?

Ángel, thank you very much for inviting us to the "Lagar de Valleseco" which is your home, your light and your flavors.

Angel, is it thanks to the fact that you are autonomous from the taxi that you have been able to find time for the passion to make cider?

No. I have always worked in agriculture. Indistinctly, whatever the company where he worked. I have always worked agriculture.

Do you think that people have to have a job and free time to develop our passion? For example: «Thanks to your passion for agriculture, the« El Lagar de Valleseco »winery, and now the three Valleseco cider awards»

Exactly. We can't just work, get home, and lie on the couch. What you like to do: painting, music, martial arts ... And I like agriculture.

I always do two things: My job, whatever it was, plus agriculture

Angel, the apple for the cider that you make, I remember in my childhood in the field that I already saw farms and these green apples were the apples known colloquially as: «poor» since they were not picked from the trees.

Not quite. That will be by zones. Before the "pippin" apple was used to fill the blood sausage. They were used to eat in the houses, they were put in the wardrobes because they gave a very good smell like quinces.

The truth is that it was the only one there was. The "fugi", the "golden" and all those apples came later.

In times of famine, any board is a salvation. Other farm products also helped, such as milk, potatoes, wheat ... People managed to fill their guts on a daily basis.

What does the Valleseco climate bring to the apple?

Mostly cold. The apple needs about fifteen hundred (1500) hours of cold. Water, water ... There are years that it is achieved and others that it is not. This is how the harvests come. Good years and less good years, or bad.

What do you contribute to the process of creating the Cider «El lagar de Valleseco»?

What I give you is what I don't give you: chemistry.

Our production is ecological

When did you see apples on trees, many years ago, before dedicating yourself to cider, did you see cider on apple trees?

No the truth is no. The path is made by walking, as the poet says. There are people who are walking, they see a cane, they step on it and break it. Others take the reed and make a flute. In my case I did not see it, until a colleague from the taxi sector who has a winery in Firgas and makes wine, my friend Mundo, told me to make cider. I like cider, we started with nonsense and today we have come this far.

Does the story of: «El Lagar de Valleseco» begin from the idea of ​​this companion of Firgas?

Yes, my friend Mundo. Mundo, as I just told you, makes wines. Mundo, is a good teacher, instructor and a lover of agriculture, very passionate about wines and their chores and he contaminated me with his passion.

We started on my farm with its machinery. Mundo got his press from Firgas and we located it on my farm in Valleseco, in a room measuring twenty square meters, it was not a winery yet and there we began to squeeze the apple.

Today, «El lagar de Valleseco» is a modest, exemplary winery and we make good broth.

What is the process of the fruit from flower to cider, passing through pests?

Spring is the season of the year for flowering. Right at flowering, the first pests appear. The most dangerous is the "carpocapsa" which is a night-flying caterpillar. People, in general, think that it is the fruit fly.

The carpocapsa, (a night-flying caterpillar that lays the egg in the flower and the larva hatches inside the apple), is the most dangerous pest. At that time, we already started to fight with organic products.

Other risks: The summer June, July, August, September ... and you have to water. The year is saying. The earth speaks. And although it is not an exact science, there are years that it rains in June.

What hope in agriculture can you transmit to all the young Canaries who are considering their future work right now in the field of agriculture?

Agriculture, the great forgotten. The underpaid. It all depends on the consumer. Who is in charge is the consumer. If the consumer wants to consume "kilometer 0" products, he helps the farmer.

The consumer is the only one who can decide the future of Canarian agriculture

If the consumer continues to consume non-ecological and contaminated fossils because they come to you from international countries by plane or by boat from far away and no product from the country is consumed, km0 Canarian agriculture will continue to be the great forgotten. Bring an apple from Chile for example; It involves polluting half the ocean from the moment it leaves Chile until it reaches the Canary Islands. An organic or conventional Canary apple is on the table in fifteen days.

An outside apple is a fossil. Green was picked from the tree. He got into a chamber. Then he got into a refrigerated truck. A refrigerator ship. Arrives at port. Another refrigerator truck, a refrigerator market and from refrigerator to refrigerator, we eat a fossil.

An apple 15 days old from the tree is a «delicatessen», that is the Canarian orchard

Is it important to return to the Canarian garden?

It should never have been abandoned. Being the underpaid, it is the great forgotten. When tourism proliferated… The Canarian garden! The sharecroppers from the south of Gran Canaria… were people from Gáldar, Artenara, people from the north of the island. They left the garden to be sharecroppers and from there to the hotels.

People who did not go to college. They speak four and five languages ​​and they are hotel managers and they are country people. People list as Jews. Countrymen who, despite the fact that they did not go to school and defend themselves with tourism like belly-up cats.

What advice for 2021 as part of job hope do you give us from the point of view of agriculture? Return to the lands of our parents and grandparents?

Advice… I am not a person to give advice because I also have my doubts about many things. I will tell you that agriculture should not be abandoned. We never know when we will need it. What I would tell them is what I tell myself and tell my children:

Don't forget the land. Although it is the great forgotten one »

Ángel, have you held a solidarity auction of the award-winning cider from "El Lagar de Valleseco"?

Yes, the truth is that everyone asks me for cider and we have no left, it is exhausted. Speaking with a friend, he recommended that I hold a solidarity auction, the entire collection has gone to "San Juan de Dios." A bid has been made for 2 bottles of cider 650 €

Thanks to Óscar Sánchez and Valleseco