Txakoli, Txakolina or Chacolí?

You may already know that Txakoli, Txakolina and Chacolí are names used for the light and sharp white wines of the Spanish Basque country. But can they be used interchangeably, or are there subtle differences to be aware of? I have been confused about this issue for some time, and if you have too, you are now in luck – I am about to explain. (But if you really don’t care, feel free to get on with the rest of your life.)

The Basque noun for the wine could be either Txakoli or Txakolin (with an n). However the Basque nationalist Sabino Arana, in his spelling reform of 1895, proposed standardisation on Txakoli, so that is what you normally see now as the wine’s unadorned name in Basque.

The a at the end of the Txakolina is actually the Basque definite article, but you will note that it is not added to Txakoli, but Txakolin, which is the only reason why I bothered telling you about the Txakolin spelling at all. So Txakolina could be translated into English as the Txakoli. You will see Txakolina in the Basque PDO names Bizkaiko Txakolina, Getariako Txakolina and Arabako Txakolina. In these names the ko endings signify the genitive, like the apostrophe s does in English. So you might translate the PDOs into English as The Txakoli of Bizkai, The Txakoli of Getaria and The Txakoli of Araba.

Chacolí is simply the Spanish (i.e. Castillian) version of the Basque Txakoli, and I believe the two words would be pronounced very similarly in their respective languages. Hence, you also get the official Spanish names for the PDOs: Chacolí de Bizkaia, Chacolí de Getaria and Chacolí de Álava.

Incidentally, while Txakoli is the base word, and it often appears on wine bottle labels, it does not seem to be protected as an EU traditional term (it is not listed in Commission Regulation (EC) No 607/2009 Part B), while Chacolí-Txakolina does have protection.

I’m going to bow-out here while I still feel on safe ground, but if you want more information about the linguistics of Txakoli, and the wine itself, you could try the Txakoli Wikipedia article. And, if you can read Spanish, or are prepared to muddle through with an automatic translation, you might be interested in part 1 and part 2 of Del vino chacolín al txakoli on the euskonews website. I am also very grateful for help received on the WordReference Language Forums.

Author: Steve Slatcher

Wine enthusiast

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