penguinoid
Posts: 1054
Joined: 1/10/2013
From: Australia via the UK, now in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Echinosum
quote:
ORIGINAL: penguinoid
I'd also note that Chenin blanc really needs to have yields kept low if you're to make interesting wine — but will give high yields if allowed. That's another headache for grape-growers.
Personally I'd think it worth it in the end — one of my occaisional day dreams is owning a winery in Savennières or Montlouis  — but I'd guess it's not an easy grape to grow or make wine from. In most regions, it'd follow that up by being a hard wine to sell, I guess.
I suppose this is why the old bushvines from South Africa is a good sign - the yield is necessarily low in such cases. In the specific case of Alheit's Radio Lazarus single vineyard CB, he bought a hilltop vineyard in the process of dying from drought, and it was abandoned after the 2017 vintage, as irrigation was not practical. I see some people on Cellartracker claim to have bottles of the 2019, but I think they don't. Basic cheap SA CB is indeed poor, and to be avoided. But you can pay surprisingly little for quality.
Vine age would indeed help with keeping yields low. Sadly I pretty much only see the cheaper, more basic examples of South African Chenin blancs for sale here. I tend to avoid them. I keep meaning to try and track down some better examples when I'm in the UK, but haven't yet.
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ORIGINAL: Echinosum
Good Loire CB producers deliberately pick a fraction of the grapes under-ripe, at least in warm years, maybe 25% in the warmest years, to increase the acidity of the wine. The traditional tale, whether true or not I cannot say, is that this practice comes from pre-revolutionary times, when transport was difficult, and Paris would plunder the Loire to satisfy its wine requirements. So they made some wine that would seem tooth-dissolvingly over-acidic to the Parisian merchants, and then they wouldn't take it. They knew the acidic wines would come around with time. I have a couple of times had 20+yr old bottles from ostensibly poor vintages, which had been unpleasantly acidic for a very long time, but had eventually come around. But actually spending money on young wines to see if that might happen is another matter.
Could well be true — it does sound typical of the slightly antagonistic relationship that exists between Paris and regional France. Of course, it's often the stories that "sound about right" that you have to be most suspicious of...
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ORIGINAL: Echinosum
South African CBs are not necessarily in an overtly fruity style. I think many of these better wines are not. A wine I bought as day-to-day drinking, but got re-evaluated as better than that, is Alheit's mid-price Flotsam & Jetsam CB. It is in a taut style, comparable to Chablis. But either it didn't make enough money, or he couldn't get the grapes again, as it was a 2-vintage wonder.
Alheit has been an influential part of my exploration of new wave South African wines. He is most famous for his several single vineyard CBs, which sell out very quickly, and later resell at fancy prices (Nautical Dawn, Cartology, etc). I'd been drinking some Ken Forrester wines. But my big eye-opening to the potential of South African new wave of wines was when I tried Alheit's 2016 Hemelrand Vine Garden. That's a blend that varies considerably from year to year, and not necessarily CB dominated. I felt it was head and shoulders the best white wine I'd drunk in years, and it cost only GBP16 in bond.
Thanks, I'll try and look out for these. Will likely have to wait for my next visit to London, however.
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RE: Chenin Blanc . let's talk. - 
I often bring back a few bottles with me when I go overseas, but importing this way at a commercial scale wouldn't be worthwhile. 
How's the condition on it? I've not had one of theirs with that much age on it -- how exciting!
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