Bengoetxe, Getariako Txakolina

95% native varietal Hondarribi Zuri and 5% Gros Manseng from Olaberria in Basque Country, situated in northern Spain. Fermented in stainless steel vats, and cold fermented on the lees using native yeasts. Once fermentation is nearly complete, the wine is bottled with a touch of captured CO2, providing some extra spritz to the wine, though it is not a full fledged pet nat. Unfined, unfiltered with a touch of SO2. Bright citrus, savory chamomile and fresh baked bread, prickly effervescence. A wine that only gets better after opening.

You are peeled away from the coast, peeled away from the center of this appellation, and your vines, along with your sense of home, are degraded by phylloxera and ripped up by the violence that accompanies a civil war. What to do? Bengoetxe, or, “Come Home.” Iñaki and Rosa Maria Etxeberria founded Bengoetxe in 2001. They are winemakers who have forged a separate peace and path in Basque Country. The only winery not located on the coast nor near the appellation’s center, Getaria, they have been making one singular, distinctive cuvee of natural txakoli amidst an ocean of industrialized Basque wine. They tend 3.5 hectares of Hondarribi Zuri and Gros Manseng vines planted atop clay at 200m elevation. Being further inland than essentially every other producer of txakoli, their grapes are able to further ripen and express the unique gift of full-pulp fruit backed by easing acidity in their eponymous bottling. Unfined, unfiltered, with no additional SO2, they age and ferment their Bengoetxe in steel vats.