Txakolina has taken the wine loving crowd by storm over the last few years. Somms and bacchanalian revelers alike adore the bright, dry, saline, fizzy fun that each bottle provides. But with success comes imitation, and the production levels in Basque country have soared in the past decade or two. That’s why today’s discovery is so refreshing–literally and figuratively! The Zudugarai clan has been making textbook Txakolina in Getaria for over 75 years, and that history and knowledge helps them produce what I believe is the most authentic iteration of these wildly popular wines. The slight effervescence is completely natural, farming is meticulous, and winemaking is gentle and low-intervention. And, you get all that delicious, refreshing tradition for next to nothing. Spring officially starts tomorrow, let this be your harbinger, and buy it by the case!

Before I continue, let's chat languages. All Basque wines have essentially two names, one in Euskara (aka Basque) and one in Spanish. For the rest of this article I’ll use the Euskara name for this lovely wine, which is Getariako Txakolina, instead of the Spanish, which would be Txakolí de Getaria. But either way you say it, the important take away is that the town of Getaria just directly out into the Bay of Biscay, and the vineyards that cover the hills just outside of town are widely considered to be the “heart” of the Txacolina production area–think of it as the “classico” zone. It’s a cold, wet, Atlantic-influenced climate, with soils of mostly alluvial deposits of gravel and sand mixed with chalky clay and limestone. The local grapes—the high-acid Hondarrabi Zuri and Hondarrabi Belza—may not have been considered “nobl