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Chenin Blanc ON THE FAST TRACK FROM WORKHORSE TO THOROUGHBRED By Michael Franz Chenin Blanc gets more than its share of bad press but we should remember that every grape variety bearing the capacity to make great wines with distinctive character must also bear the occasional insult. Sauvignon Blanc’s detractors call it pungent and shrill. Cabernet’s critics chide it for being angular and hard, and Merlot gets maligned for being gutless and facile. However, anyone with a fair mind and an experienced palate knows that these are great grapes, and that their greatness is undiminished by the fact that a partisan critic could point to plenty of poor renditions. If you’ve tasted just one great bottle of Latour or Petrus, no one will ever be able to convince you that Cabernet or Merlot is a second-rate variety. Chenin Blanc belongs in this league of great grapes, but its greatness is underappreciated for two key reasons. First, its reputation suffers from the sad fact that many Chenins made around the world really are boringly bland or downright offensive. Second, few consumers have tasted a truly great Chenin Blanc that could immunize their opinion of the grape against all of those bland or offensive renditions. Excellent Chenins have generally trickled into world markets from only one tributary — France’s Loire Valley. That, however, has changed. During the past dozen years or so, many South African vintners have heightened the seriousness with which they craft Chenin Blanc, and the delicious wines they are now exporting will help teach the world an important lesson about the heights this grape can reach. cow. Its natural attributes suit it to these inglorious roles (and all-too-well, for the sake of its reputation). Vigorous in growth and abundant in yield, Chenin vines are also resistant to heat, wind, and many maladies and pests that afflict other varieties. Consequently, virtually every country and region that has planted Chenin Blanc has employed this hardy, heavy-bearing variety as a base for vin ordinaire. This is emphatically the case in California, where yields in the hot Central Valley are cranked up as high as 10 tons per acre (or 175 hectoliters per hectare). Much the same is true elsewhere in the United States, as well as in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia and New Zealand. Historically, winegrowers in South Africa have also been quite content to exploit Chenin’s productivity. It is widely believed that Chenin was 2 a MORE THAN VIN ORDINAIRE Those who fail to recognize Chenin Blanc as a thoroughbred can be excused on the ground that it is most often employed as a workhorse or even a cash THE SOUTH AFRICA WINE REPORTER
among the first bundles of vine cuttings imported by industry pioneer Jan van Riebeeck in 1655, along with Semillon (or Groendruif) and Listan, which is better known as Palomino in Spain. Chenin has played a major role in South African viticulture ever since. The grape was known as ‘Steen’ from early on, and the name persists as a synonym to this day. The leading theory attributes this to confusion between grapes, followed by Dutch settlers transforming the French word ‘Listan’ to ‘La Stan,’ then to ‘De Steen’, and finally to ‘Steen.’ Long thought to be of Germanic origin, Steen was not reconnected to its European source until 1963, when viticulture professor C.J. Orffer from the University of Stellenbosch definitively identified Steen as Chenin Blanc. Chenin Blanc’s identity may have remained unclear for centuries in South Africa, but its strong and versatile performance characteristics were apparently clear from the outset. Chenin fared particularly well once planted, handling all the viticultural challenges thrown its way in the broader Cape region. Its performance in the cellar was at least as strong as in the vineyard and enterprising South Africans found it suitable not only for all manner of sweet, dry and sparkling wines but also for a wide range of fortified wines and spirits. Thanks to its resilience and versatility, Chenin Blanc was South Africa’s most widely planted variety when the country resumed exports to all global markets in the early 1990s. With over 30,000 hectares (or 70,000 acres) devoted to it, Chenin claimed more than a third of South Africa’s vineyard area. NO MARKET FOR SERIOUS CHENIN BLANC There was, however, one thing that South African Chenin Blanc could not claim in the early 1990s: Greatness. Consumers within and beyond South Africa tended overwhelmingly to regard the grape with indifference, with the result that no real market existed for serious renditions of this cultivar. Indifference among consumers is easy enough to understand. If South Africa was guilty of treating Chenin as a workhorse, so too were all of the other countries working with it outside of France. One or two vintners in each country were trying to get something special out of the grape, but their efforts hardly attained a critical mass that could impact global perceptions. Within France, serious regard for Chenin never waned, at least among the most conscientious vignerons. However, even in the Loire, a candid appraisal reveals that truly great Chenins are only made in small quantities by relatively few producers and in favorable growing seasons — which are anything but routine in the Anjou-Touraine region. Great renditions are vastly outnumbered by négociant bottlings that are correct at best and, at worst, sulfurous, sugary, sharp or dirty. Where global perceptions among consumers are concerned, there is also the major problem that great examples from the Loire do not carry the name Chenin Blanc — much less Steen. It is only the rare connoisseur and not the average wine shopper (even within France itself) who knows ❂ anything substantial about Savennières, Coteaux du Layon, Bonnezeaux, Quartsde-Chaume, Montlouis or Jasnières. Few consumers know these appellations, and fewer still know that Chenin Blanc is the grape behind them. More know of Vouvray, but Vouvray is made in so many styles that it hardly helps fix Chenin’s profile for consumers. And there is also the problem that many of the sulfurous, sharp bottlings that drag down perceptions are precisely négociant Vouvrays. This, then, was the grim situation confronting South African producers in the early 1990s. International markets were unknowing or unenthusiastic about Chenin or Steen, and domestic consumers regarded the wines as bland stuff THE SOUTH AFRICA WINE REPORTER 3 a
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