What is Txakolina?
Txakolina is a wine produced in Basque. It is pronounced choc-o-lee-na. In Spain, a dairy basking spelling is often replaced by a more phonetic chacoli. There are many varieties of wine, but the most common characterization is light, sparkling white. The unifying characteristic of all varieties is that they are mainly made with grape grapes from the Basque country: White Hondarribi Zurri and Red Hondarribi Beltza.
The wine has royal roots in the Basque tradition. Originally it was a drink of the Basque Royal Rank, preserved only for the highest strata of society. Txakolina was drunk to celebrate the milestones; When Juan Sebastian del Cano returned to Basque as the first man orbiting all over the world, the wine was served at the celebration of his return home. The most common is Getariako Txakolina, Getariako or Guetaria. This is the source of the general concept of wine. It is a highly acidic, sparkling white wine. GETARIAKO producers accept the historical importance of wine. The greatest winery, amestoi, still prints a portraitDel Cano on his labels.
The second designation is bizkaiko txakolina. This area has more diversity in its wines - even producing some red. Growers and winemakers try to re -capture the historical character of the wine, which was primarily red until the 19th century. The disease destroyed the Basque vineyards and the growers began to supplement the fields. Basque officials took advantage of turnover to encourage the shift from red to white production to avoid competition with the surrounding regions.
Arabako txakolina is the third designation. It was founded in 2003 by 12 local grape growers. They mix their grapes Hondarribi Zurri with three French varieties: Gros MANSEng, Petitmanseng and Petit Courbu.
White Txakolina dominates the Basque, where it is drunk in tapas bars. The wine is known as good pairing for seafood. Basky are devoted to wine and drink white even with masses that are traditionally paired with heavy redme.
de Maisons Selections imports wines to the United States, the only other main market for Txakolina. It imports mostly white varieties, but also imports almost all red and amelé rosé, which are produced because Basques strongly prefer white varieties. In 2009 de Maisons imported 111,000 bottles of Basque wine, out of 1200 bottles in 2001.