Basque ethnography at a glance

Traditional tools and barrels for making txakoli. Author: Juanjo Hidalgo.

Wine has had much to do with drinking, food and liturgy; it has been a product to trade with, it has been present in rituals, celebrations and ceremonies, it has granted social prestige and, its consumption even established the frontier between the barbarian and the civilized world. Because of this, the grapevines (and consequently wine) arrived in places where the climate was not so favourable; one of these wines was our txakolin. Thus, our wine, more than a geographical denomination, became a liquid baptized with an adjective that, let’s say did not pretend to praise its organoleptic virtues.

We have evidence that vineyards existed in the Basque valleys of the Cantabric watershed since the High Middle Ages, and that a wine was made there; a few centuries later, named txakolin, at least since the first quarter of the 16th century, or perhaps even earlier. Therefore, like all wines, it has had an important social history and a significant presence in commerce and the economy of our towns throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

However, in addition to remembering our txakolindegiak (txakolin wineries), which were meeting places to enjoy leisure and meet with family and friends, songs and poems that heard in them, and beyond the folkloric aspect and the nostalgia that arose in the so-called “txakolin culture”, we wanted to undertake a journey so that our wine has the place it deserves, with the same rigor and seriousness as any other topic that requires research.

The objective of the exhibition “IZEN PROPIOA DUEN EUSKAL ARDOA”(TXAKOLIN, BASQUE WINE WITH PERSONALITY, is to embark on a journey through time and invite you to participate in a tour that begins with the first wild vineyards and cultivation fields. On this trip, we will have some essential documents to follow the history of our wine step by step, so that you can study and enjoy them. We will also follow the trail of life in our landscape and open the door to the forgotten wineries of our old farmhouses. There will also be a moment of entertainment, of course, with the txakolin as the protagonist, and we will sing the songs and poems created in those moments of joy. Likewise, we will not leave aside, as an unsolvable issue, the origin of the word “txakolin”, explaining all the hypotheses studied so far. In addition, we will see, with sadness, the arrival of the plagues that devastated the wine landscape, and, at the same time, we will smile and celebrate the renaissance of our wine, known for its current cultivation and quality.

You will be able to taste all of this and much more at Txakolin Museoa-Txakolingunea in Bakio, until September 2026. More than seventy objects are on display, from the Roman era to the 20th century, in addition to dozens of photographs, ancient and modern, and short but precise texts, so that the history of txakolin does not remain in folklore. The documents and data you did not know will probably surprise you, so join us on this exciting journey through txakolin.

Juanjo Hidalgo