San Sebastian Tapas and Wine Tours — Txakoli, Rioja and Basque Cider

Txakoli, and why it comes down from a height

Txakoli is the Basque white: mostly Hondarrabi Zuri, picked early, low in alcohol at roughly 9.5 to 11.5 per cent, dry, sharp and bottled with a faint spritz. There are three appellations — Getariako Txakolina on the coast at Getaria and Zarautz, which is the largest at over two million bottles a year, plus Bizkaiko Txakolina and Arabako Txakolina inland. The pour from height, escanciar, is not showmanship: dropping the wine into a tilted glass drives the dissolved carbon dioxide out, which lifts the aroma and rounds the acidity. It is poured in small measures because it is meant to be drunk fast, before the spritz goes. Order it with anchovies, gildas, seafood and anything cured, and expect to pay around €2 a glass in a bar.

Sidra natural and the txotx

Basque cider is a different animal from anything sold in a British or American pub: still or barely sparkling, tart, faintly funky, unsweetened. In the sagardotegi — the cider houses clustered around Astigarraga and Hernani, fifteen minutes from the city — the barrel is tapped, someone calls txotx, and the room lines up to catch a thin stream in a tilted glass. Petritegi traces its origins to 1526 and is six generations in; Zelaia and Astarbe are the other names you will hear, and Sagardoetxea nearby is a cider museum. The season traditionally runs January to April, though several houses now offer txotx year round. The menu is fixed and does not vary: cod omelette, salt cod, a charcoal-grilled beef chop, cheese with quince and walnuts. A guided cider-house afternoon with transport is on our food tours page.

Rioja, vermouth, kalimotxo and the small measures

Rioja is an hour and a half south and is the red a Basque bar pours with meat — tempranillo against fat and salt, no subtlety intended and none needed. Vermouth has come back strongly as an aperitif here, drunk before lunch rather than in the evening. Kalimotxo, red wine cut with cola, is a genuine local invention and genuinely popular, mostly with a younger crowd at festivals. The vocabulary that matters most, though, is the measures: a zurito is a small draught beer of about 150ml, said to be a San Sebastián invention; a txikito is a small glass of wine; a caña is a standard draught. Ordering small is not restraint, it is the mechanism that makes a five-bar evening possible. Our what to expect guide covers the rest of the ordering vocabulary.

Alcohol-free, and the price question

If you do not drink, say so at booking. Most operators substitute soft drinks, water or alcohol-free options and several list that explicitly. What almost none of them do is charge less, and reviewers on more than one tour have said the pricing should distinguish between drinkers and non-drinkers — a fair point given that four or five pours is a real part of the cost. If you are not drinking at all, the better value is a tour that leads with food: a market-and-cooking morning, a chef-led dinner, or one of the tours that lets you choose a soft drink at each of five stops. The wider question of whether the guided version is worth the premium is worked through on our worth-it page, and the vocabulary itself is explained in pintxos versus tapas.