The Basque Country – Txakolí

Apart from the food the Basque Country has something unique in the drink section, too. Txakolí is a white wine that is primarily made in this region of Spain. It’s very dry, slightly fizzy, low in alcohol and high in acidity. Usually drank as an aperitif as it cannot be stored for long, it has to be consumed in the first year of bottling. I don’t think that would be too much of a problem to anybody.

According to the history they have been making wine in the Iberian peninsula since the Roman times. This light, fresh white wine goes very well with fish and just as well as the Basque people have been fishermen for thousands of years. Still, until the 1980’s the wine was only drank in the homes of this region and almost disappeared completely in the middle of the 19^th century. Later however due to a Denominación de Origen award the fame of the wine has spread and nowadays it is one of the pillarstones of the Basque cuisine.

Even though I personally don’t drink wine I forced Paul’s mum and sister to ‘sacrifice’ themselves for the sake of my blog and have a glass of this unique drink. They kindly offered to help although we noticed that even though they ordered the wine from the same place at the same time the drink in the two glasses looked and tasted different! What a curious phenomenon! Well, here is the unpronounceable txakolí in all its glory.