Txakoli (sha-ko-LEE)

Txakoli is made from the indigenous white grape called hondurrabi zuri. Zuri means white in Basque; hondurrabi is a village near the French border. Dry as a bone, and extremely sleek on the palate, txakoli is often slightly carbonated and is served in a unique manner called “breaking.” To break txakoli, the wine is poured from a height of several feet into a little tumbler glass (splashing some on the floor seems to be SOP). The flight through air is said to open up the txakoli and make it smell and taste more vivid.

What was the most-planted white grape in the Napa Valley before Prohibition began in 1920?

A. Chenin Blanc

B. Sauvignon Blanc

C. Pinot Blanc

D. Riesling

Before Prohibition, many of the most important vintners in the Napa Valley were German. Immigrants such as Jacob Schram, Frederick Beringer, and Charles Krug forged the first wine industry in the Napa Valley using the grape they knew best: riesling. Even by the 1940s when Stony Hill Winery famously planted the largely unknown chardonnay grape in the Napa Valley, riesling plantings were four times greater than that variety. Vineyard acreage devoted to riesling declined precipitously throughout California in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, but a new surge of excitement for the varietal means that plantings are once again on the upswing. Still, today, riesling plantings comprise just over 4000 acres in California; chardonnay, 95,000 acres.

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