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Grenache Blanc: A Lil’ Ole Bitty Pissant Country Wine

Pity poor Grenache Blanc (gruh-NOSH BLAHNK). For decades, it’s been fighting tooth and nail to not only been get past its reputation as a countrified peasant grape responsible for the dirty or dusty qualities in its white wines, but it’s also had to live in the shadow of its bigger, badder, stronger, and darker big brother, Grenache Rouge, who took the family name for himself and became more ubiquitous and well-known than his sister among both the wine drinking intelligentia and non-intelligentia alike.   
On second thought, don’t pity poor Grenache Blanc at all. It’s the fifth-most planted grape in France (behind Ugni Blanc – coming in September! –  Chardonnay, Semillon, and Sauvignon Blanc), a major component of two of France’s most famous and widely-recognized wine appellations (Cotes du
Rhone and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, although the grape is only used in the white versions of both wines), and up to 10% if it can even be blended into red Cotes du Rhone Villages blends, proving Grenache Blanc is one girl who can step and play with the boys when she wants to.
She’s also exceptionally popular in the Rousillon region of France (the viticulture Wild, Wild West of France – where anything goes!), where either she duets with a variety of other Rhone-style grapes (Dolly may have had Porter Wagoner, Kenny Rogers, and Emmy Lou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, but Grenache Blanc’s got Marsanne, Roussanne, Viognier, and Muscat) or plays solo, and she’s achieved worldwide fame in places like Australia, Spain, and even the United States (where we were late to adopt her but now appreciate and embrace her unique country style).  
Much like her ruddy fraternal twin, Grenache Blanc imparts a dirty, rustic quality into the wines in which it’s added, which just like country music can be an acquired taste for most folks. But that flavor profile, and the twinge of rural flavor and darkness that she brings to wines lets you know almost immediately when she’s involved in the proceedings.

Grenache Blanc wines are typically big, fruity whites with large, voluptuous, rounded curves; high in alcohol but low in acidty. The Grenache Blanc vines themselves tend to be remarkably robust and can produce fruit by the bushel, but when Grenache Blanc grapes are allowed to overproduce on the vine, they will produce wines that are heavy and flabby (just like Dolly’s fought with her own weight over the years). But when pruned back and grown just right, Grenache Blanc transforms into highly aromatic, perfumed wines that can stand up strong on their own or provide strong structure, character, and backbone to the blends in which they are featured. There’s usually some sweetness and soft stone fruits in the wine too, but not a mean or acidic streak to be found. Yet another reason why Grenache Blanc is a favorite to partner up with sharper, thinner, more acidic grapes like Picpoul, Bourboulenc, and Roussanne.
But while you can take the grape out of the country, you can never take the country out of the grape, so no matter where it’s grown, the same curvy, round, dirty, rustic scent and flavor patterns follow Grenache Blanc around like a coonhound beggin’ for your pocketful of jerky.

So don’t pity this week’s Forgotten Grape, “poor” GRENACHE BLANC, the country wine. Embrace her, love her, cherish her for all the spunky charms and character she has.
She’s a grape of the people, has always been true to herself, has never hidden
what she is, and yet still has remained firmly popular for a long, long time.
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What It Looks Like, What It Smells Like, and What  It Tastes Like

Grenache Blanc looks like:

Grenache Blanc smells like:

Grenache Blanc tastes like:

As we mentioned above, when produced properly and green-harvested early  to prevent over-budding on the vine, Grenache Blanc produces a wonderfully perfumed wine resplendent with lots of bright fresh fruit and florals. Notes of green apple, tropical fruits, and stone fruit will be present, along with some sweeter scents ala honey or powdered sugar. Young Grenache Blancs often take on the scent of dill before they are properly aged. However, because of the nature of this grape, there will also be more rugged, animalistic scents to the wine, a barnyard smell fairly indicative of certain grapes from the Rhone, particularly the southern Rhone. Depending on where the Grenache came from as well, there might be a minerality to the nose of the wine as well. Lots of different scent combinations based on the terroir make Grenache Blanc one of the more complex scented wines in the world. And as you’ll see below, the complexity doesn’t just stop there in the nose, either.
Some of that dirt and dust and “country” style flavor will definitely make its way to your tongue with a Grenache Blanc, bringing some darker flavors in mid-palate that might almost resemble tar or something with a distinct bitterness. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly natural with a white Grenache. Before that, however, you should be enjoying the soft flavors of peaches and nectarines, and perhaps even a slight buttery flavor if malolactic fermentation has been introduced to the wine. Beyond the flavors, however, Grenache Blancs are extraordinarily soft and round wines, with big, creamy mouth feels but very little acidic bite to the wine. It’s a roundness that might remind you of some of Dolly’s best...um, assets, but the similarities are undeniable. Yeah, okay, once again said to much...minerality. There may be some minerality in the flavor of the wine. Yet another sign of the Rhone terroir. Be ready for that. Okay, that’s enough I think.     
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• As mentioned above, Grenache Blanc is one of the major grapes of Cotes du Rhone wines and is one of the 13 grapes legally allowed in Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines (though if you want to get technical and consider Grenache Blanc to be a separate grape from Grenache Rouge like we do, then it’s actually 14 grapes for Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The thirteen/fourteen grapes are...going to be revealed one-by-one here on Forgotten Grapes (come on, you didn’t think we’d ruin the surprise already and take all the fun out of this, did you?), but if you are keeping track at home, we can tell you that the Chateauneuf-du-Pape grapes we’ve already covered here on ForgottenGrapes.com so far are Mourvedre, Cinsault, Roussanne, and now Grenache Blanc. And here’s another hint: one of the 13/14 grapes is not a Forgotten Grape at all, but one you should already be very familiar with...

• The Chateauneuf-du-Pape region of France produces around 110,000 hectolitres of wine per vintage (basically per year). That may not sound like a lot, until you realize that 110,000 hectolitres is the equivalent to 2.9 million gallons of wine, or 14.63 million bottles of wine per year. 14.63 million?!?!? Do you know how long it would take you to drink that much wine? Neither do we, but it would be a long, long time. And just know this: more wine in produced in the 7900 acres of Chateauneuf-du-Pape alone than in all the appellations of the northern Rhone valley (including Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, Cote Rotie, Cornas, St. Joseph, and more) combined.           
• The United States was actually a rather slow adopter when it came to Grenache Blanc. The first Grenache Blanc planting in the U.S. didn’t occur until 1996, when a Central Coast winery (and one of the foremost Rhone Rangers) called Tablas Creek grafted Grenache Blanc cuttings from the esteemed Chateau de Beaucastel in Chateauneuf-du-Pape onto rootstock and let it grow (this was after the cuttings, which had been pruned and imported in 1992, spent three years in a USDA quarantine until they were determined to be disease-free). And even after the first fruit from these vines was harvested in 1999 (remember, it takes about 3-4 years from initial planting to get fruit hearty enough to be pressed into wine), the Grenache Blanc wine could only be called “Grenache” because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (who monitor and regulate the wine industry) would not recognize Grenache Blanc as its own varietal. It was only after Tablas Creek petitioned the ATF in 2002 and waited a year that Grenache Blanc was finally recognized, in February of 2003. Today, all 100 acres of Grenache
Blanc currently planted in California come from the Tablas Creek vines.             

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Fun Facts to Impress/Bore People At Parties

From Brein’s Brain to Your Plate

 

 

“Mmmm, I really love a good Grenache Blanc. To me, it’s a full-flavored wine with lots of interesting notes, and food-wise, you can pair lots of different things with it because of it’s versatility. Plus it’s so classically French that you can pair it with a ton of different French things. But I’m getting ahead of myself. To me, Grenache Blanc makes a great, less buttery alternative to Chardonnays, particularly big heavy-oaked California Chardonnays. That’s why you can easily pair a Grenache Blanc with a food that’s a classic staple with Chardonnay – popcorn. Go easy on the butter, though, especially if your Grenache Blanc has any malolactic in it, but the soft roundness of the Grenache and the fresh, slightly sweet peach flavor will pair really nicely with a rough texture and salty earthiness of popcorn.”

“Okay, so getting into the French stuff, to me a Grenache Blanc is a great wine to pair up with a fish you might ordinarily eat with a subtler Burgundian Chardonnay. To me, a Grenache Blanc will bring a whole lot more to the table than just an ordinary Chard (or even an extraordinary one from the Cote d’Or or Chablis or someplace), and with the right dish, it can really up the complexity. You’ve just got to be careful that the wine isn’t too complex and overpowers the dish. So my pairing here would be a classic Sole Meuniere with a Grenache Blanc. Just basted and basted in brown butter as it roasts, which should complement the creaminess of the wine nicely, and then the capers – which should be toasted or fried to bring out the oils – will really match the earthiness of the wine.”
“Alright, last one and I’ll keep this short. Because you get a lot of peach flavors in the wine, I’d just throw together a simple peach salad. Super simple, really – some arugula, fresh peaches, maybe some chopped red onion, cucumber, a little bit of goat cheese or sliced almonds if you want some crunch, but that’s it. All those
ingredients will mesh super nicely with a Grenache Blanc.
Very tasty summer dish right there.”  
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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 28. 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.

 

2008 Wild Horse Santa Barbara County Grenache Blanc

Clearly it’s been the summer of Wild Horse around here (and we truly can’t thank the winery enough for sending along the bottles of all the different Forgotten Grapes of theirs we tasted this summer), so for the last Wild Horse wine (at least for a little while), we’ve got the Grenache Blanc. Surprisingly to us, this wine had a bit of Riesling style to it, with a slightly sweet nose, lots of perfume and tropical fruits, and just a hint of effervescence on it. Pure peach flavors throughout the sip – like taking a peach and crushing it in your hand – although the wine did get a bit dark around the mid-palate in that classic Dirty South Rhone way the wines from the region will darken. A richer gold color to the wine, this wine had a really incredibly creamy mouth feel to it that demonstrated the sensuality of this particular grape. And even though the 15% off code has lapsed, we still recommend you visit the online Wild Horse Winery Store and pick yourself up a bottle, especially if you are as big a fan of Wild Horse as we are.

2007 Frick Owl Hill Vineyard Estate Grenache Blanc

Is there anything that Bill Frick touches that doesn’t just immediately turn to gold in his hands? You know how we feel about his 2006 Dry Creek Valley Cinsault, and his Grenache Blanc gives us a similar warm and fuzzy feeling all over as well. A lighter, more golden color than the Wild Horse, the Frick Grenache Blanc had a very distinct barnyard nose to it when we first opened the bottle. That scent soon faded as the wine breathed and became a sweet honey smell, like taking whole honeycomb and sticking it up to your nose. Our tasting notes read as the following: Dry, very dry, very very very dry, super super super dry, refined and well-balanced. Dry wasn’t exactly what we were expecting with a Grenache Blanc, but it came as a pleasant surprise, particularly with how balanced the wine was. It showed a bit more acid than other Grenache Blancs, with more sour nectarine and peach flavors. Honestly, he’s a crazy mad scientist up there in Dry Creek when it comes to Forgotten Grapes, and all we can do is just continue to urge him on in his crazy experiments and support him in any way we can. You should support him as well by picking up a bottle of 12 of his Grenache Blanc directly from Bill on the Frick Winery website (or mix it with a case of the Cinsault and some of the other wines he makes – you’ll be glad you did!). And ask him to put photos of his labels up on the site while you are at it!

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.

Though no Grenache Blanc is grown in or around Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (as far as we know), a Grenache Blanc wine will be a near-spittin’ image Doppelganger for Dolly herself: bright straw blonde and though somewhat pale, it still has a lot of color to it. Also, because Grenache Blanc is fairly susceptible to oxidation and also is a wine that takes well to aging in oak, you might get a darker, brassier blonde color to it.  And did we mention the roundness and curviness of the wine before? It seems like that’s something that definitely needs mentioning. Not that you can actually see those things. Well, at least not on the wine. You get the picture. I’ll stop writing now.

2006 Tablas Creek Paso Robles Grenache Blanc

If you’re going to drink a Grenache Blanc, then you’ve got to at least drink the first one ever to be grown in California, right? The Grenache Blanc vines from which all other Grenache Blanc vines in California are descended? That’s why we HAD to taste the Tablas Creek. It would be like visiting St. Louis and not seeing the arch, or stopping in Springfield, Illinois, but not visiting Lincoln’s home or his Presidential library. Unfathomable (and can you tell we still haven’t shaken our Midwestern tour out of our minds yet. I wish I could tell you about some of the Missouri varietals we tasted out there...). Anyway, on to the venerated Tablas Creek. Just what you’d expect from Beaucastel vines: classic rugged, dirty, dark Grenache Blanc scents on the nose with some peach jam in there for good measure. An almost subtle nose for a wine like this. Lots of soft peach flavor in the mouth and a delicate creamy softness. The wine was dry, but not too dry, and didn’t delve too deeply into some of those darker, tar-like flavors like true Rhone Grenache Blancs can. We really, really enjoyed this wine immensely, right down to its firm structure and slightly yeasty finish. Really the pinnacle of Grenache Blanc aromas and flavors here in the U.S., and probably in

France too. We got ours from Napacabs.com, and if you’re going to be trying Grenache Blanc out or comparing them to others, this is the wine

you need to buy to serve as your benchmark.  

 

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Go On. Try It. You’ll Like It.