2019 Izar-Leku (Artadi) Hondarribi Zuri

Izar-Leku, meaning "place of the stars," began as a passion project for the López de Lacalle family, owners of the celebrated Rioja producer Artadi, together with a friend who runs a Basque cider house. Working from a small plot in the fishing village of Getaria on the Basque Country's Cantabrian coast, within the Getariako Txakolina DO, the family originally set out simply to make traditional Txakoli. After early experiments recalled the character of Champagne's base wine, high acid, low alcohol, they enlisted Champagne consultant Raphaël Bereche to help refine the project into a serious traditional-method sparkling wine, a rarity for the region. The wine is made from old, roughly 60-year-old vines of Hondarribi Zuri and Hondarribi Beltza grown on clay soils over slate and basalt, capped by a protective layer of sandstone, on slopes facing the Bay of Biscay under a cool, humid Atlantic climate. The base wine is aged one year on lees, with about a third fermented in barrel, before undergoing a lengthy 36-month second fermentation and lees aging in bottle using the traditional Champagne method, then disgorged with low dosage. The result, from what critics described as an average year with typical Basque rainfall, is a wine of moderate alcohol, low pH, and searingly high acidity, all wrapped around a distinctly mineral, saline character reflecting its coastal terroir. Expect a bright golden color and a complex, layered nose of fine lees, toasted brioche, dried nuts, baked fruit, and fragrant herbs, with the palate showing real power and flavor intensity, fine, persistent bubbles, and a subtle, pleasantly bitter finish. A faint creaminess from partial malolactic fermentation softens the edges without dulling the wine's characteristic freshness and salinity. Produced in tiny quantities (around 1,000 cases), it's a genuinely singular expression of Basque terroir through the Champagne method, drinking beautifully with oysters, shellfish, and crab, and standing as one of the most acclaimed and sought-after Txakoli-style wines being made today.