Tag Archive | "Chenin Blanc"
Standout Chenin Blanc: The Winery of Good Hope & Land of Hope, South Africa
I wrote up highlights from themed tables at Wines of South Africa’s Cape Wine Europe trade tasting here last week. At the Chenin Blanc table, The Winery of Good Hope’s Radford Dale Renaissance Chenin Blanc 2010 was my pick of the bunch. It’s not the only great Chenin The Winery of Good Hope (TWGH) make – I [...]
Continue reading...Chenin Blanc – a chameleon and “no shrinking violet”
Posted Saturday 29th January 2011
South African wine writer Michael Fridjhon wins my (newly created) award for the most analogy-packed description of a variety I have ever read as he trots through the many different incarnations of Cape Chenin and ponders its future in a feature for South Africa’s Wine magazine here. Never before have I seen references to oaky styles being [...]
Continue reading...Ken Forrester Noble Late Harvest T 2008: Seasonal wine of the day
Posted Wednesday 8th December 2010
Today, I head off again to Decanter magazine’s offices for day two of a South African Chenin Blanc panel tasting. We won’t be tasting dessert wines but, for my daily drip feed of seasonal sweeties, fizz and fortifieds, one of the Cape’s leading Chenin specialists, Ken Forrester, makes a Christmas cracker. Only made in top years [...]
Continue reading...Cape Chenin – spicing it up at Imbibe 2010
Posted Wednesday 21st July 2010
Last week I showed wines for South Africa’s Chenin Blanc Association at Imbibe 2010 (pictured), a fair for those buying or serving drinks within the licensed trade. Quite a few visitors were puzzled that by the fact that the selection was confined to South African Chenin until I explained that the Cape has the world’s largest Chenin [...]
Continue reading...The Loire v South Africa: Sauvignon & Chenin Blanc
Posted Monday 28th June 2010
Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc are long established grape varieties in the Loire with profiles to match. In South Africa, Sauvignon is a very “johnny come lately variety”, while Chenin Blanc’s history in the Cape dates back to the 16th century. So how did the Cape wines fair against a couple of Loire examples? Jacques Rouzé Les Grandes Vignes [...]
Continue reading...Cape Chenin – great value
Posted Friday 28th May 2010
The London Wine Fair provided a chance to catch up with South African Chenin Blanc. Based on my 2004 Chenin research project, lower yielding old vine fruit is key to fine Chenin. It has better concentration, depth of flavour and balance. Cooler sites also help with balance and length. While oaked styles were really making [...]
Continue reading...World Cup fever: wine, Brazil & Berry Bros & Rudd
Posted Wednesday 26th May 2010
I’m no footie fan but it’s impossible to avoid World Cup fever, even at work! As I tasted my way through Wines of South Africa’s Chenin Blanc table (notes to come) at London Wine Fair, it was hard not to be distracted by the football bouncing around the Winelands projected on the screen beyond. Stepping [...]
Continue reading...A feast of tasting notes: coming up on The Wine Detective
Posted Friday 21st May 2010
London International Wine Fair is over and, having been away from my desk the best part of two months, I’m looking forward to writing up some top tastings and working my way through a towering pile of samples. Here’s a taster of the heady cocktail in store here at The Wine Detective over the next [...]
Continue reading...Decanter World Wine Awards – spot the Savennières Silver medallist
Posted Wednesday 19th May 2010
The results of the Decanter World Wine Awards were unveiled to the trade yesterday at London International Wine & Spirit Fair. Call me an egotist, but I was keen to see if a hunch about one of my stand out Loire wines proved correct. Answer, yes – the wonderfully limpid, subtly oak buffed silver medal-winning [...]
Continue reading...Fine sweeties from the other Coteaux, de l’Aubance not Layon
Posted Friday 12th March 2010
Hot on the heels of my 2004 Chenin Blanc study project, I wrote a feature for Wine International magazine (now defunct) about matching sweeter styles of Loire Chenin and food. I visited a well known temple of gastronomy whose proprietor French, but not from the Loire, admitted that Loire Chenins are perhaps the finest match [...]
Continue reading...A pair of Secateurs
Posted Monday 1st March 2010
Ex-Rustenberg man Adi Badenhorst’s Paardeberg Rhone blends, white and red, were one of my finds of the 2008 Cape Fair (see here). A A Badenhorst Family Red 2006 received plenty of plaudits when I showed it at my “Cape Rhone blends with a twist tasting” last summer (reported here). The only grievance? That it wasn’t [...]
Continue reading...Kleine Zalze Bush Vine Chenin, success & scandal…
Posted Wednesday 10th February 2010
Success, followed by scandal, all very red top. Last month I received an email from Stellenbosch winery, Kleine Zalze, notifying me that they’d taken top honours in South Africa’s WINE magazine’s 2010 Guala Closures Chenin Blanc Challenge: Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection 2008 won the award for Best Overall Chenin Blanc. Kleine Zalze Cellar Selection Bush [...]
Continue reading...Two skinny Loire stars: French Connection Classics Saumur Champigny 2008 & Huet Vouvray Le Mont Demi-sec 2002
Posted Monday 4th January 2010
The New Year ushers in a fiscal tightening of the belt and resolutions of the type aimed at tightening actual belts, so how about a cut price, trophy-winning red which weighs in at a feather-weight 12.5%? French Connection Classics Saumur Champigny 2008 is made by Eric Laurent, the gifted winemaker at the Cave de Saumur, [...]
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Posted Monday 24th October 2011
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