WHY CHENIN BLANC DESERVES A PLACE IN YOUR CELLAR
From price to personality to versatility, the white wine grape has much to offer
I was asked by a reader to name my favourite white wine. Another one of those desert-island questions. After a few minutes of thinking, I told her I couldn’t answer that, but my favourite grape variety is probably chenin blanc.
A quick stroll through my wine cellar will reveal it is the wine that I collect most, followed by Alsatian Grand Cru pinot gris. Why does chenin blanc take up so much space and, more importantly, so much of my wine budget? I have many reasons. So to continue my quest to turn everyone into white wine lovers, here’s why you should drink chenin blanc. It’s rarely boring. Chenin cuts a nice line between the richness and texture of chardonnay and the acid-driven refreshing qualities of sauvignon blanc. While chardonnay is the most-planted white-wine grape worldwide, one could make the case that many of the resulting wines are rather innocuous. The reason is that chardonnay is very climate-sensitive. Chenin is a little more forgiving.
Price. Don’t get me wrong — there are some staggeringly good chardonnays out there, but they are often very expensive. You can find magnificent chenins for $20 to $30. Check out
today’s suggestions and taste for yourself. Complexity. Chenin can be seen as the riesling of the Loire because it has so much personality. Its fruit qualities are often enigmatic, leaving you scratching your head as to what to call it. I find chenin shows everything from melon to apricot to quince to citrus to mandarin. But after years of trying to figure it out, I now just call it “chenin fruit.”
Versatility. While chardonnay can produce stellar still and sparkling wines, and arguably more refined examples of the latter in Champagne, chenin blanc still has the edge in my books. Chenin makes excellent and very budget-friendly sparkling wine, intense dry table wines, aromatic off-dry wines and extraordinary sweet wines. It has the ability to age,
and for a long time. Last year I found a 17-year-old Vouvray chenin blanc hidden under a stack of bottles. The wine, Domaine des Aubuisières’ Cuvée Silex, sells for under $20. It was staggeringly good. Chenin blanc has two qualities that give it ageability: acid and, quite often, residual sugar. That’s not to say you can taste the sweetness — the acid is usually quite high, and they balance one another. The bottom line is that chenins are very reliable for the long haul, and 10 years of aging is not a problem.
So, why don’t more people know about chenin blanc? It is one of the 10 most-planted white grapes in the world, after all. One of the problems is that it can produce a large amount of grapes per vine pretty reliably. So in many countries, historically chenin blanc was used to make inexpensive table wines or — as in South Africa, the world leader in chenin blanc plantings — distilled to make brandy.
That is changing. South Africa is undergoing a chenin blanc revolution, with winemakers taking advantage of the thousands of old vines that are scattered around the country. And while not available here, I have tasted excellent chenin blanc from Argentina to California, and from as close as Ontario’s Prince Edward County. If you are visiting Prince Edward County this summer, stop by Chadsey’s Cairns and try theirs.
But the region that really excels at chenin is France’s Loire Valley, where it has been grown since the ninth century. As the grape name is not written on the label, you might have drunk chenin blanc without realizing it. Appellations like Vouvray, Saumur, Anjou, Montlouis-sur-Loire and Savennières are all readily available at the SAQ. Many of these appellations produce dry, off-dry and sparkling wines. If you are into sweet wines, look for appellations like Coteaux du Layon, Bonnezeaux and Quarts du Chaume.
Chenin blanc can be an adventure to drink. The wines can be easy to understand or, at times, confrontational and demanding. But if you are interested in white wine, they are definitely worth a try.