Why Chenin Blanc Might Be The Most Underrated Grape

Chenin Blanc. Do you like it? Okay, those of you that thought to yourselves, no, I don't like Chenin Blanc. Have you ever had it? Again, half of you that answered no, probably have never had it. Probably another 30% of you had Beringer Chenin Blanc or a Mondavi Coastal Chenin Blanc or an Almaden Chenin Blanc that your mom used to drink. The other 20% of you probably had a good bottle of Chenin Blanc and maybe you just don't like Chenin Blanc. But here's a fact of the matter, kids. Chenin Blanc is one of the greatest white wine grapes on the planet. There, easy enough, right? Think about it. Think about all the great wines made from France. You got those great Vouvray's, Mont Louis, you have all the great dry Chenins from Saumur and the Anjou area. And not only that, South Africa, you got this huge Chenin Blanc culture in South Africa right now, where they planted all these old vines of Chenin, you know, back in the 50s and 70s to produce brandy. And in fact, after the vines got 40, 50 years old, they were like, oh, hey, yeah, this is good. Yeah. And the same thing's happening here. There is some great old vine Chenin in California. You know, a lot of it over by the Sacramento Delta. There was a lot of Chenin planted in the neck of the woods for bulk wine a ways back. And, you know, Pine Ridge farmed that out. You see that Pine Ridge Chenin Viognier. It's a ubiquitous white wine, but it really is a tasty white wine for under $15 and really kind of helped to put Chenin maybe a little bit back on the map as a semi-serious white grape variety. But we do not have a ton of old vine material for Chenin Blanc. And young vine Chenin, maybe a bit like young vine Carignan, maybe isn't quite as expressive. But as these vines hit 40, 50, 60 years of age, we start bumping into something completely different. And that's what we got here. This is the Foxen. Hold on. Sorry. Once in a while when a wine smells so good and you just got to dig in. Foxen, Chenin Blanc, Ernesto Wickenden Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley, 2024. This vineyard was planted in 1966. I'm guessing by Ernesto Wickenden. And the fact of the matter is it takes time. It takes time for this vineyard. Although Foxen has been making this wine for, God, what, 30, 40 years. I don't know how long. It still takes time for these vines. They keep moving, right? There's a reason why an old vine is considered super cool. Why an old vine is an old vine. Because it takes time to get to that point where it delivers this killer equilibrium in this dry Chenin. Where you have the tension and nerve and verve and ziza. And then you also have the richness. You got the peach. You got the stone fruit in a perfectly dry situation. This wine was aged in 500 liter puncheons. None of them knew for a few months, etc. Then bottled up. It's simplicity here. Sandy loam soils, 60-year-old vines, and just this wine doing its thing. 24 is a great white wine vintage in the Central Coast. We're seeing a ton of them. One of the best Sauvignon Blanc vintages ever. And apparently Chenin is something else again. Because this wine manifests a little Frenchy. And a lot of the Foxen Chenins didn't manifest that way 15-20 years ago. I don't know if it's the vintage, the vine age. But this wine has gained another level of complexity over the last several vintages. And I'm just absolutely in love with this wine. The press was loving it. And we were really keen to taste the 24. I'm digressing. But wine digressing. So it's okay. The versatility of Chenin Blanc. The versatility of this wine on the dinner table. Remarkable. Chenin Blanc goes with everything. It isn't too heavy. It's not oaky. But it's not lean. It's not sharp. It's not green. It's not grassy. It's not buttery. It's not fat. It is just friggin right. Mmm. Good crater. So this stuff's like 27 bucks a bottle. But 10% off. If you buy six or more. Really dope. And yeah. I'm so bad at saying it. But you guys should do this. Like all the time. You should do this. You should do that all the time. And drink a friggin Chenin Blanc to your hurl. I hope we sell a ton of this today. This is one of the top white wines under 30 bucks we taste from California this year. What a friggin treat. 94 points Venice. 93 advocate. 93 suckling. All the scores are out there. Everything's out there. There's no reason not to buy this wine. Other than you think that you don't like Chenin Blanc. Cheers.