Sparkling Txakoli! A joint project between Artadi and Zapiain, a Basque Cider producer. With grapes grown in the Getariako zone over looking the Bay of Biscay. The base wine was aged for one year on lees, with a third of it aging in barrel, it then spent 18 months undergoing a traditional sparkling fermention in bottle. Sparkling Txakolina! Not just fizzy, sparkling! It is everything that you imagine it would be! Bring on the oysters! The Getaria project of the Artadi family of wineries, Izar-Leku was originally intended to be a Txakoli winery, but with experimentation and some guidance from their friend Rapha Bereche, the sparkling project was created. A full Champagne-method production, Izar-Leku is incredibly fresh, a beautiful Champenois autolytic character lending a new viewpoint to the famous wines of the region.
As a final cap to the de la Calle family's (Artadi) growing empire of curiosity, Izar-Leku was born of an idea to just make Txakoli, from the fishing village of Getaria. They had a friend who was a Basque cider producer, who helped facilitate the introductions to purchase a 1.2 hectare plot of vineyards. Split into three parcels of Hondarrabi Zuri & Hondarribi Beltza, the idea was just to craft something simple, enjoyable. However, to the seasoned wine drinkers, Patricia admits, “It felt like Vin Clair”, alluding to a Champagne base wine - traditionally high in acid, low in alcohol and all too often low in complexity, too. “We thought, maybe this could be better with a second fermentation,” Carlos says, and the family made a small amount for themselves with their first harvest in 2015. Encouraged by the results, Carlos called in a friend. “Rapha Bereche, he helped us for three years, and the base wines developed more flavor, and it still has great acid even though we’re harvesting later than Champagne!”
While they muse on their Izar-Leku being the possible future of Txakoli, they admit that the two grapes (Zuri, the white, makes up most of the blend; Beltza, the red variation and parent of Cabernet Franc) are like “A cat that lands on four legs.” owing to the wind-swept region being largely resistant to disease, and rather consistent year-to-year.