IZAR-LEKU Espumoso/Sparkling Brut Nature 2018

Medium straw yellow with an elegant perlage. The nose opens cool and Atlantic: yellow apples, pears, yellow and green citrus notes, salty sea breeze and wet stone. It then turns creamy, with fresh cake batter, plenty of brioche, ripe stone fruit and a touch of vanilla, alongside lemon balm, mint, iodine and oyster shell.

The grapes grow at the Artadi estate in Basque Guipúzcoa, directly on the Atlantic coast and at the heart of Txakoli production. Artadi traces back to a cooperative founded in 1985 by Juan Carlos López de Lacalle in Laguardia; at the end of 2015 the estate left the DOCa Rioja, whose regulations did not even allow individual vineyards to be named on the label. Today his children Carlos and Patricia work alongside him at the estate.

Hondarrabi Zuri, elsewhere in the Basque Country the base for lightly sparkling, dry and fresh still wines. Artadi turns it into a vintage sparkling wine made using the méthode traditionnelle, aged for a long time sur lattes on the lees. Brut Nature here means: bottled without dosage, 12.5% vol.

The wine shows drive from the outset, yet remains focused on freshness and finesse. The long lees ageing delivers a fine mousse along with brioche and toasty notes. Add to that citrus, stone fruit, greengages, a touch of chalk, delicate tannin and tangy-fresh salted lemon. The saline streak blends in seamlessly.

With oysters, seafood platters and sashimi, as well as with crisp fried fish or salty tapas such as anchovies in olive oil.

A sparkling wine made from a grape variety rarely found outside the Basque Country, uncompromisingly dry and structured through extended lees ageing.