Chenin Blanc: the world’s most underrated grape

Chenin Blanc might be probably the most underrated white wine grape on this planet. It makes wines excessive in acidity that usually take some time to unfurl and present their mettle. However with time in bottle they will maintain their very own with the best white wines on this planet and, crucially, proceed to enhance for many years — an actual signal of high quality.

The French dwelling of Chenin Blanc is Vouvray within the Loire Valley and, within the previous, chilly days earlier than summers warmed up, younger Vouvrays might be relatively arduous work. The extra business producers intentionally ensured they contained a little bit of sugar to counterbalance the sourness, which meant that many wine drinkers — the anti-sugar brigade — didn’t take Vouvray or Chenin Blanc severely.

South Africa has much more Chenin Blanc planted than the Loire. This did nothing for its status in the direction of the tip of the final century when many South African producers regarded it merely as a workhorse grape and had been inclined to interchange it with a extra trendy, more moderen French import comparable to Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay. Despite this, it was so extensively planted that it stays the nation’s most-planted grape selection.

But over the previous 20 years there was a revolution in how Chenin is perceived in South Africa. Wine producer Ken Forrester performed a serious half in that. When he purchased a wine farm in Stellenbosch, east of Cape City, in 1993 he refused to tear out the Chenin and he’s been nurturing its status ever since.

“I actually had no concept of how Chenin might and would go on to rewrite the playbook for South Africa,” he mentioned after I quizzed him on Cape Chenin’s latest historical past.

“I’m so thrilled to see all of the sensible wines and to satisfy the following generations of younger winemakers who merely appear to take Chenin without any consideration. They don’t know that the market wasn’t excited about Chenin. They by no means heard my neighbour again within the late Nineteen Nineties, who not-so-jokingly mentioned to me, ‘Should you suppose you possibly can afford to make use of French oak on Chenin, you’ll have to make use of your return ticket and return to Johannesburg!’

“It appears these youthful guys and gals assume it’s all the time been the go-to grape for excellence. It’s really a modern-day fairytale come true!”

Forrester helped discovered South Africa’s Chenin Blanc Affiliation in 2000 and ensured the nation’s participation within the Rendez-vous du Chenin wine competitors three years later at Fontevraud Abbey within the Loire.

At about the identical time, Bernard Germain from the Loire, with whom Forrester had interned within the Nineteen Nineties, spoke at a Chenin symposium organized by Forrester in South Africa.

Germain’s speech sowed the seeds for what was to grow to be one of many nation’s most well-known wines, the Sadie Household’s Chenin-based mix Palladius, which put the unirrigated bushvines of the inland wine area Swartland on the map.

“I bear in mind Eben Sadie attending and his phrases to me that day. He mentioned he was so excited that he nearly needed to flip the desk and scream,” wrote Forrester.

Chenin Blanc is so well-established with South Africa’s main wine producers as of late that 45 of them attended the primary worldwide congress dedicated to the grape, held in Angers in 2019.

Most of the most interesting and (now) most admired South African wines are primarily based on Chenin Blanc, notably from the nation’s previous bushvines. It’s straightforward to identify these wines due to their Licensed Heritage Vineyards seals. These are awarded by South Africa’s Old Vine Project, which has recorded practically 2,000ha of Chenin Blanc vines which are greater than 35 years previous, whereas some are as previous as 80.

Whether or not it’s the vine age or the hotter local weather, South African Chenins are typically just a little bit fleshier they usually mature sooner than these of the Loire. That mentioned, they will proceed to evolve in bottle for 10 years simply and a few for 20. Eben Sadie claims his debut classic 2002 continues to be in fantastic fettle. (Many 2002 white burgundies, in contrast, appear very frail.)

I’ve been considering quite a bit about Chenin lately as a result of, spurred on by a request from a reader, I’ve simply tasted 40 Chenins — from 2019 again to a surprising 2002 — made by a grasp of the grape within the Loire, the splendidly named Jacky Blot of Domaine de la Taille aux Loups.

He didn’t must wave a flag for Chenin in his dwelling territory; it has lengthy been revered because the grape of alternative. His flag-waving was for his appellation. Montlouis is the smaller neighbour of Vouvray and had all the time been thought to be inferior to it.

However Blot has labored so arduous and with such constantly fantastic outcomes that he has grow to be one of the admired producers wherever.

In 1988 he purchased 8ha of previous vines in prime websites in Montlouis and has slowly expanded in order that the Domaine de la Taille aux Loups now has 45ha of 20- to 100-year-old Chenin Blanc vines, a few of them now additionally on alternative websites in Vouvray. He was a pioneer of hand-picking, natural viticulture, painstaking rejection of grapes less than scratch, and fermenting and ageing his tight, tense Chenins in principally previous oak barriques in his cellars hewn into rock.

All of those strategies have since been extensively adopted however they had been ground-breaking within the Nineteen Nineties. And he not solely makes long-lived, nonetheless expressions of every of his vineyards, but in addition a few of the best-value glowing wines on this planet.

The Loire and South Africa would be the solely locations the place Chenin Blanc is taken actually severely, however the grape can be grown the place there are odd pockets of Chenin love elsewhere, such because the Millton Vineyards in New Zealand.

In California, the place Clarksburg within the Sacramento delta and Jurassic Park Winery in Santa Ynez Valley are well-known for his or her previous Chenin vines, the range is thrilling some lengthy overdue curiosity amongst new-wave producers.

Chenin Blanc can be one of the versatile wine grapes. Like Chardonnay, it makes nice glowing wine. The excessive acidity helps. Like Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, it additionally makes high-quality candy wine. Certainly, I can’t consider some other grape selection from which such a variety of wine kinds may be made.

Tasting notes on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com. Extra stockists from Wine-searcher.com

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