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Chenin Blanc: Starlet of the 1970’s, Lost in the 1980’s, Esteemed Grand Dame Forgotten
Grape of Today
We won’t lie: we based a large part of this week’s Forgotten Grape comparison on the fact that we just really wanted to run this picture on the page (va-va-va-voom!). But when you stop and think about it, Chenin Blanc and Helen Mirren truly are cut from the same cloth, presumably a few scant square inches of white-trimmed red Lycra (I mean, come on! Meee-yow!).
Both reached levels of popularity in the 1970’s – Chenin Blanc as a cheap and readily accessible white jug wine that served as the first furtive wine experience for a generation of young American men and women, and Helen Mirren as a young, nymphal dynamic
(and usually naked) ingénue who served as first furtive sexual experience for a generation of young (particularly British) men. They both rose to fame right around the same time – the mid 1970’s – and both rises were sudden and explosive, a veritable “taking the world by storm:” Ms. Mirren from her Shakespearean theater roots to become the (often nude) queen of British art house cinema, and Chenin Blanc from just another grape grown in France’s Loire valley to the most popular grape in California and the best-selling white wine in the United States for most of the decade.
But as is wont to happen with such meteoric ascents, precipitous backslides occurred soon after. For Ms. Mirren, it was her inability to escape from the shadow of her overexposed roots and not being able to display her classically-trained acting chops to a wider world audience. Seriously, anyone remember Helen’s not-quite-blockbusters of the 1980’s Excalibur (playing King Arthur’s female nemesis Morgan le Fay), 2010 (playing a Russian – a no-no in the 80’s), White Nights (playing a Russian yet again), and The Mosquito Coast (not playing a Russian this time, but stuck in the film that, up until Regarding Henry came out, was considered the most forgettable Harrison Ford movie of all-time)? Not exactly the New Classics there.
For Chenin Blanc, it was the inability to escape from the shadow of its jug-wine roots (you know the brands: Charles Krug, Gallo, Inglenook) and the rise of a newer, fresher, more interesting grape named Chardonnay, which soon after its coronation at the 1976 Judgment of Paris had California wine makers swooning and forgetting about all other white grapes.
A dark period loomed long for both parties after these letdowns, with only a few intrepid souls taking notice of the terrific things both were doing during this time, namely, the handful of PBS viewers who happened to catch Ms. Mirren’s tremendous portrayal of DCI Jane Tennison on the BBC’s Prime Suspect (if you’ve never seen any of the series, move it to the top of your Netflix queue immediately!), and the few wine aficionados who kept track and noted with great interest the wonderful Chenin wines being produced in the Loire and in South Africa.
But like all great things, if you keep honing your skills and putting out exemplary work, people will soon re-discover you and take notice. Which is why both Chenin Blanc and Helen Mirren are experiencing comebacks today. Both are now award-winners. Both are demonstrating a vast range and diversity in their current work heretofore unknown in their previous canon: Ms. Mirren in films dramatic (The Queen), comedic (Calendar Girls), action-packed (National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets), horrific (Teaching Miss Tingle), suspenseful (State of Play), and sometimes a combination of all of the above (Gosford Park); Chenin Blanc in wines dry, sparkling, sweet, and even smooth and rich, as in brandies (yes, brandies can be made from Chenin Blanc). Both have achieved huge levels of notoriety both in their home countries and worldwide – Helen Mirren it goes without saying, and Chenin Blanc as you’ll see in the Fun Facts section.
And yet, Helen Mirren has vaulted herself into A-list/household name status, while Chenin Blanc still toils in obscurity as a Forgotten Grape. Why? Why the disparity? To be honest, we’re not quite sure, but we do know that we’re bucking to change all of that. Much like how movie studios run Oscar campaigns for the actors in their movies, consider this the first shot across the bow in our campaign to get Chenin Blanc recognized as a household grape. This is our Fort Sumter, if you will. And like Harvey Weinstein during his glory days at Miramax, we’re going to do everything in our power to get people to recognize the true star power of this grape and all of the amazing things that are being done with Chenin Blanc, even if it takes every second of our day, every fiber of our being, every dollar we own, and every last shred of clout and influence we have to change people’s minds. Or
at least until next Thursday, when we start a new campaign with an entirely different grape.
But until then, follow for now (power to the people/sing!) and join our revolution
for Hope and Change by reading on and re-discovering the sharp, subtle magic
that is CHENIN BLANC, the Helen Mirren of Forgotten Grapes!
What It Looks Like, What It Smells Like, and What It Tastes Like
Chenin Blanc smells like:
Chenin Blanc tastes like:
You’d think that since Chenin Blancs tend to be bright, lively acidic wines that their noses would reflect this same structure, with lots of lemon and lime and other sharp citrus fruits, right? BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Wrong, buster. Most Chenins have exceedingly complex noses, with a wide range of scents emanating from them. About the closest you may get to citrus is a sharp green apple scent that many Chenins seem to have, although this aroma can mellow into a slightly softer melon or honeydew aroma. Speaking of honey, you may get a whiff of sweetness and possibly flowers from the wine, as Chenins tend to be sweet-smelling and faintly perfumed to the nose. On top of that, you’ll smell herbs and grass (akin to a Sauvignon Blanc, which also thrives in the Loire valley), and an earthy, clay-like scent that one member of our squadron equated to Travertine tiles (she’s either super high-maintenance or watches way too much HGTV). As for the sweet Botrytisized version of Chenin, the one overriding scent you should get is apricots, but beyond that, there might be hundreds of scents in there. Sweet Chenins are known for their olfactory complexity. Our tasters picked up frozen peas, asparagus, and even banana ice cream...and that was just in one wine. So brush up on your scents before you dip into sweet Chenins.
Chenin Blancs may be the ultimate sweet-and-sour wine, as they tend to lead with sharp, crisp, acidic flavors primarily in the form of citrus fruits: pineapple, Meyer lemon, even something akin to watermelon rind. But those sour flavors are undercut with a delicate honeyed sweetness. You may get some spicy flavors of cinnamon and pepper on your tongue and you might also get a big mouthful of smoke, which is often the by-product of the wine aging in the charred lining of newer oak barrels, which some producers use to temper the acidity of the wine. This oaking can also lead to a creaminess in the mouth, as malolactic fermentation converts the more sour malic acids into softer, creamier lactic acids (the same acids you find in milk or sour cream and that build up in your leg muscles and start to burn when you sit against a wall with your knees bent at a 90-degree angle for a period of time. Go ahead and try it). This can also make the wine a little cloudy, particularly if this fermentation is still going on in the bottle.
• Chenin Blanc is virtually synonymous with one particular wine region in France, the Loire valley (which makes sense since it’s the only area in France where Chenin Blanc is grown). The Loire (luh-WAHR) valley itself is actually comprised of 87 different wine appellations that follow along the Loire river from its source in the central Massif west of the town of Valence north to the town of Orleans, where the river takes a hard left and then carries more or less straight west out to the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean. Basically, if you take the letter L, flip it upside down and reverse it, you’ve got the Loire river and the Loire valley wine region. The region is long and narrow, and with 185,000 acres planted most of the 629 miles of the river, it is home to scores of different wine grapes and numerous different varietals of still and sparkling red, white, and rose wines. Like one of those wine lists at a restaurant that more resembles a phone book, there are lots of different grapes and lots of different wines coming out of the Loire, which can make it a confusing wine region to keep track of. However, the best way to remember the Loire is to divide it up into three distinct areas based on the primary white grape grown in that territory. Ready to learn? Let’s begin, shall we?:
The Upper Loire is basically everything north from the river’s source in the south to the town of Orleans (where the river breaks hard left, although, it should be noted that there aren’t a lot of appellations along the northern-flowing section of the river, and the appellations there aren’t really anything of note). The Upper Loire is prime habitat for Sauvignon Blanc grapes, and the fabled appellations of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé (POO-ee FOO-may) are contained in this Upper Loire, almost directly across the river from each other.
The Middle Loire encompasses the appellations from Orleans west through the town of Angers, and with all apologies to the Marlboro man, this is Chenin Blanc country. Key Chenin appellations to remember are Touraine, Montlouis-sur-Loire and Vouvray (the true epicenters of Chenin in the Loire, since both appellations produce nothing but Chenin Blanc wines), Savennieres, Coteaux de Layon (not to be confused with the Coteaux de Lyon) and Anjou-Saumur. The Saumur appellations are especially known for using Chenin Blanc to produce sparkling Saumur Mousseux and Crémant de Loire wines, making the region the third largest producer of sparkling wine in France – behind Champagne and Alsace. This section of the Loire is also known for the 300 palatial chateaux built by French kings and nobility between the 10th and 20th centuries along the river.
The Lower Loire includes all the remaining appellations from halfway between Angers and Nantes west to the sea, and it is known for the Muscadet wines (of which more is produced than any other wine in the Loire) made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape. We’ll go into more detail about this region and Forgotten Grape in a future installment.
Oh, in case you were wondering, the primary red grapes in the Loire are Cabernet Franc and Gamay, but those will be covered in future Forgotten Grapes entries, too. Just be patient.
• Though the Loire valley is synonymous with Chenin Blanc, surprisingly little of the grape is grown there compared to the total volume produced worldwide. In fact, you might say that Chenin Blanc is actually more popular in other regions than it is in France. For example, over 10,000 acres of Chenin Blanc – more than exist in France – are currently planted in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina, where the grape is known as Pinot Blanco. Chenin Blanc is also the third most-planted grape in California behind Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, even though its total acreage in the state has dropped by over 25% since its heyday in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. In South Africa, Chenin Blanc is known as Steen and comprises almost 20% of all vineyards in the country, which is actually down from nearly a third of all vineyards in the late 1990’s. And finally, Australia has over 1500 acres of the grape planted, mostly in the south, and even New Zealand has around 500. So despite the immediate connection most people have between Chenin Blanc and France, it’s actually a more popular grape around the rest of the world than it is in its homeland.
• Because of the cooler climate and unstable weather patterns in the Loire, it is one of the few wine regions in France where winemakers are allowed to use a process called chaptalization, in which sugar is added to the unfermented grape juice to increase the alcohol concentration after fermentation and give some heft to the wines. Interestingly, chaptalization does not increase the sweetness of a wine, since the added sugar is converted to alcohol during fermentation. What it does, however, is make thin, flabby wines fuller and gives them more body due to the presence of extra alcohol. Chaptalization is a controversial process, prohibited in Australia, Austria, California, Italy, and South Africa, but permitted in certain wine-growing regions of France, Germany, and the United States that have poor climate conditions similar to
the Loire.
Fun Facts to Impress/Bore People At Parties
From Brein’s Brain to Your Plate
“Chenin Blanc is a terrific seafood wine because of its aromatic gusto, its sharp, clean acids, and the fact that it has good weight in the mouth that can stand up to the oiliness of fish. Actually, a really great combination with Chenin Blanc is ceviche. Some really fresh fish of your choice, ‘cook’ that in some lemon or lime juice, toss in some red onion and some cilantro and avocados to mellow it all out and balance the citrus, and you’re going to have an excellent pairing with a Chenin Blanc right there. Just be careful not to add any jalapenos or other peppers in to it, because a Chenin won’t be able to stand up to anything too spicy.”
“For this next food pairing, we’ll stick with fish, but since most people only think of Chenin Blanc as a French wine, we’ll go with a really classical French dish: sole meuniere. Now you could use any flat fish for this, like a skate or a dory or a turbot because they’re so flaky and mild-tasting and you can get four filets out of them as opposed to two with a regular fish, but to make it really authentic, you’ve got to use a pure Dover sole. Now, take your filets, dust them with some flour, and then sauté them in butter in a nice hot pan. Give them 3 to 4 minutes on each side until they’re nice and brown, then take ‘em out and drop a lot more butter in the pan. Let that cook down until it starts to brown, then add in some white wine, some lemon juice, some capers, let that reduce for a few minutes, then pour all of that brown butter sauce over the fish and enjoy with a crisp, tart yet sweet Vouvray or Savennieres.”
“So for you vegetarians out there – and I know you’re out there – Chenin is also a really great salad wine, particularly salads that match up well with the sweet-and-sour nature of Chenin Blanc. So try this one out: watermelon and goat cheese on a bed of either arugula or dandelion greens if you want a little more of a bitter bite. Then make a quick vinagrette using some white wine vinegar, olive oil, and the watermelon juice left over from slicing up the melon. The fruit is your sweet, the dressing is your sour, the goat cheese will be your salty, and the greens will be your bitter. That’s all four major flavors
covered right there. And tell me that’s not going to be perfect
on a hot summer’s night with a crisp Chenin Blanc...”
Chef Brein Clements is the chef/owner of Restaurant Omakase in Riverside, CA, which
is quickly becoming SoCal’s answer to El Bulli. Minus the molecular gastronomy. He
began his cooking career at Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley and moved on to become
Chef de Cuisine at the famed Balboa Bay Club before opening his own restaurant. Plus
he’s only 27. My man knows his wine and he knows his food. Each week he’ll provide
ingredient and dish recommendations that match up well with the week’s forgotten
grape. You should heed what he says. No, seriously, heed it.
Go On. Try It. You’ll Like It. 
2007 22Hundred Cellars Paso Robles Chenin Blanc
We met Andrew the winemaker from 22Hundred Cellars at a tasting in San Diego and
enjoyed talking to him and tasting his Chenin Blanc so much that we knew we had
to feature his wine here. This is a very straightforward Chenin with a big, buttery
popcorn nose and a cloudy blonde color that implies some malolactic fermentation
still going on in the bottle. Between the butter and the hints of lemon zest on the
nose, it almost plays more like a soft Chardonnay than a classic Chenin (all the
better to wean those non-converted Chardheads). On the palate it is a very round
wine with not as much acid as a traditional Chenin, but with big pineapple flavor
as well as a little red apple and pear. Definitely not a subtle wine, it will be
fantastic on a hot summer’s day, and since the 22Hundred Cellar tasting notes say
to pair it with seafood or greens, you should pick up a couple of bottles directly
from 22Hundred Cellars and try it with all of Brein’s pairing recommendations.
2007 Domaine des Aubuisieres Cuvee de Silex Vouvray
A really big nose on this really big French Chenin Blanc. Lots of mineral aroma here
(this was the wine that evoked Travertine tiles to our home remodeler), as well as
some Meyer lemon, licorice and quince on the nose for a little sweetness. There was
also a scent that was just like jasmine, but not quite. You figure it out. We couldn’t.
The flavors in this wine are big, although the acidity is surprisingly not. Again,
more Meyer lemon flavors and more sweetness with this wine than we expected to get,
especially in the form of some red apple flavor mid-palate. If you can’t tell, we
really enjoyed tackling this one and figuring it out. It was like a puzzle. We got
our bottle at The Wine Club, and you can get one too. For a French Vouvray, we can
say with authority that this price is definitely right.
2007 Ballentine Old Vine Napa Valley Chenin Blanc
We’d already picked up this northern California Chenin Blanc to compare to the Central
Coast, French, and South African versions of the grape, and then we met the Ballentines
at the same San Diego tasting and they were awfully nice folks with really good wines.
Happy coincidences abound! Their old vine Chenin is big on the green apple flavor
and smells grassy and herbaceous like a Sauvignon Blanc, all tell-tale signs of a
Napa Chenin. The wine then opened up creamy on the palate with a lot of spice – cinnamon,
pepper, cardamom – before hitting us with strong citrus and melon notes. No oak on
this wine; it tasted like it was all stainless-steel processing and aging. Be forewarned
though: one of our tasters picked up some bitterness on the back-end that to her
tasted like an uncoated aspirin. She was the only one who got that, though. We’d
normally say that you should pick up our bottle directly from the Ballentine Vineyards
website and tell them we said hi and guided you there, but the site says they’re
all sold out, so you can get yours where we got ours, at Bevmo.com.
Think you’ve got a better pop culture icon to describe Chenin Blanc than what we came up with? Let us know in our Comments section. If it’s good enough, we may use it in a future update.
Taste, smell, or see something different? Let us know in our Comments section.
Know something about Chenin Blanc that we don’t? Share it with us and other wine lovers out there in our Comments section.
Think you can pair food and wines better than Brein can? Share your best food pairings with Chenin Blanc in our Comments section and see what the master has to say.
Our Friend of the Forgotten Grapes Tasting Squadron tastes all of the wines you see
here ahead of time to ensure that you aren’t getting anything rotten or clunky. We
also try to ensure that most of the wines highlighted here are affordably priced
($20 or less) so you can try them out for yourself without having to take out a second
mortgage or sacrificing your kid (or future kid’s) college fund to do so. Lastly,
the Friends of the Forgotten Grapes has relationships with all the fine wine purveyors
we link to in this section. We know them, we trust them. You can order these wines
from them online right now and be trying them out in the next couple of days. Do
yourself a favor and order from them by using the links below. It’s totally worth
it. And tell them that ForgottenGrapes.com sent you, too.
Call me/on the line/Honey/Call me any anytime... Actually, the word “honey” in that lyric is especially prescient, since despite the many different forms of Chenin Blanc (dry white table wine, sparkling wine, sweet dessert wine, brandy...okay, maybe not brandy), almost all of these wines have a mellow blonde hue to them. The color won’t be a super bright yellow and will most likely fall somewhere in between a pale straw color and and a dull, slightly tarnished gold, but blonde is the color of a Chenin Blanc, a blonde that should be fairly clear (though in rare instances the wine can be a bit murky and opaque in the bottle and initially in the glass, as you’ll see below).
Know of a bottle of Chenin Blanc that we should try? Tell us about it in our Comments section.
2007 Mulderbosch South Africa Chenin Blanc
It doesn’t say Steen anywhere on the label, but this is 100% South African Chenin
Blanc from one of the largest producers in that country. This Chenin has a spicy,
smoky, sweet nose resplendent of passion fruit. The flavor, though, is a lot drier
than the other Chenins we tasted, with pure pineapple flavors leading into a mouthful
of smoke (we wondered if some sort of major forest fire had occurred close to these
vines). All in all, it has similar characteristics to an unoaked Chardonnay, with
a long finish and nice roundness. Our Friends at Napacabs.com have this on their
shelves and really, really want you to try it. Trust us, it’s not easy to find a
lot of South African Chenins out there, so make sure you pick up some of this while
they’ve still got it in stock.
2005 Domaine Vigneau-Chevreau Chateau Gaillard Moelleux Vouvray
As an added bonus, we thought we’d throw in a Botrytisized Chenin Blanc dessert wine
for you (and us) to try. We decided upon this nifty little Vouvray done in the sweet
Moelleux style of the Loire. A soft and mellow nose of apricots gives way to the
cavalcade of sweet and vegetal scents you read about above – the frozen peas, asparagus,
the banana ice cream, etc. We had a hard time placing the flavor of the wine, though,
until it came to each of us seemingly all at once: rainbow sherbet. No, we’re not
kidding. It’s a fun sweet wine that works as a perfect nightcap
and will bring you back to fun times in your childhood. Okay,
non wine-drinking fun times. At least it did for us. The Wine
Club has this one too, so check it out if you want a little
Something different in your Chenin.
But Don’t Just Take Our Word for It...
Whenever possible, Friends of the Forgotten Grapes will offer up a short interview
with a winemaker working with the highlighted Forgotten Grape. It’s their chance
to tell you a little bit more about who they are, their winery and wines, and how
they got started working with this particular Forgotten Grape . We do this because
we want you to get to know the winemakers and better understand their mind set and
their passions for particular Forgotten Grapes. We also do this because we’re givers
and only want to make you happy. Isn’t that enough for you? What more do you want?
This week’s interview is with Andrew Jones, co-founder and chief winemaker of 22Hundred
Cellars in Paso Robles, California. Enjoy.
Friends of Forgotten Grapes: So what is the story behind the name 22Hundred?
Andrew Jones: 2200 was my address number throughout college at Cal Poly San Luis
Obispo. I made my first wine there during my 4th year of college, 2 barrels of Paso
Robles Syrah. My two roommates during college, Eric and Scott, helped me out with
the process. They were studying engineering and had no clue about wine at the time.
In 2006 I decided to make my first vintage and asked my old roommates to partner
up on the project and go commercial. We thought 22Hundred was the perfect name to
reflect us and our start in winemaking.
FoFG: How did you get started in the winemaking business?
AJ: I studied agribusiness with an emphasis in viticulture. I had no idea what I
was getting myself into at the time I applied. Cal Poly is one of the few schools
that makes you decide on a major with your application. I had a friend from high
school that was in the agribusiness program that introduced me to everything. I
liked the classes but my season interning up at Gallo-Sonoma sealed the deal. Fresh
out of school I started working for a wholesale grapevine nursery and eventually
ended up on the winemaking side. I have done every aspect of the business from driving
a tractor to ride-a-longs with distributors in my short 6-year career.
FoFG: What drew you to start producing Chenin Blanc?
AJ: I started making Chenin Blanc as a response to a trend I was seeing in the nursery
business. My clients were coming to me every year trying to find the next high acid,
food friendly and unique white grape. Time after time, they would call looking for
some oddball grape from some minor part of the world with a long name nobody could
pronounce. I felt they were forgetting about Chenin Blanc. In my book there is
no more versatile and interesting white grape.
FoFG: So what makes your Chenin Blanc different from other Chenins out there?
AJ: We are the only producer in Paso Robles making dry Chenin Blanc currently. Paso
is perfect for Chenin. It is hot enough to get the late ripening varietal fully mature
but at the same time has the cool evenings to retain the natural acidity. We also
make it in more of a South African style. Primary and secondary fermentation
take place in barrel versus stainless steel and we add just a hint of new oak.
