90 points View from the Cellar, John Gilman

“The 2023 Txakoli Malda from Bodegas Zudugarai just arrived a couple of weeks before this article went to print and will be in the market for much of the coming year. The bouquet here is vibrant and expressive, hopping from the glass in a mix of green apple, lime, menthol, a lovely base of wet stone minerality and a topnote of lemongrass.
On the palate the wine is bright, fullish and quite a bit more youthfully spritzy than the 2022 version, with lovely complexity and grip, good mineral undertow and a long, well-balanced and refreshing finish. Good juice. 2024-2029.”

From the Winemaker:

Txakoli Zudugarai is a family-run business where the effort and dedication of three generations converge to produce a classic, traditional style of Txakoli. They grow the only txakoli vineyard located within a natural park in Basque country, just 7 kilometers from the Atlantic ocean. Both Hondarrabi Zuri (white) and Hondarrabi Beltza (red) grapes are raised on trellises above the humid ground that grants Txakoli Zudugarai with a perfect coolness and noticeable minerality. Txakoli Malda offers fresh, fruity flavor, perfect freshness with a citric, juicy start and filled with a salty end. Zudugarai directly controls every process of elaboration, not only in its cellars but also hand harvesting the grapes in its vineyards, keeping the essence and personality of txakoli. The latest technologies are assimilated in a traditional way for elaborating txakoli to produce an original wine.