{"title":"Chenin Blanc","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"chateau-bellerive-quarts-de-chaume-quintessance-1997","title":"Chateau Bellerive Quarts de Chaume \"Quintessance\" 1997","description":"","brand":"Wilkie Antiques","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46799437955295,"sku":null,"price":85.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P2260569.jpg?v=1740629290"},{"product_id":"domaine-ogereau-quarts-de-chaume-la-martiniere-2021","title":"Domaine Ogereau Quarts de Chaume \"La Martiniere\" 2021","description":"\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harvest","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47189089419487,"sku":null,"price":65.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P7311624.jpg?v=1754091486"},{"product_id":"delaforce-rose-port","title":"Delaforce Rosé Port","description":"","brand":"VinMarket","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47549738320095,"sku":null,"price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/PB010100.jpg?v=1762043871"},{"product_id":"sandlands-amador-county-chenin-blanc-2023","title":"Sandlands Amador County Chenin Blanc 2023","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSierra Foothills wine country is known for Zinfandel, Barbera, and rustic mountain reds. Chenin Blanc is not what most people associate with the region. But at 1,500 to 1,900 feet in Amador County, on volcanic rock, quartz, and ancient metamorphic stone, the variety finds conditions that produce something entirely different from the warm-climate whites the region's reputation might suggest. Judge Bell Vineyard, the backbone of this wine, sits at 1,500 feet in iron-rich volcanic rock, quartz, and decomposed granite; the vines were planted in 1979 and have been head-trained, dry-farmed, and own-rooted ever since. Story Vineyard sits higher at 1,900 feet in black gneiss and blue schist. Both benefit from the extreme diurnal swings of the Sierra Foothills, where afternoon heat gives way to sharp overnight drops, preserving acidity across a long growing season.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e100% Chenin Blanc from Judge Bell Vineyard (planted 1979, 1,500 feet) and Story Vineyard (planted 2020, 1,900 feet), fermented across one foudre and 14 barrels. Practicing organic farming throughout. 12.4% alcohol. The 2023 California vintage brought dramatically above-average rainfall statewide, a delayed budbreak, and a long, cool growing season in which physiological ripeness arrived at unusually low sugar levels. White flowers, sea salt, citrus peel, chalk, and flint open the nose; the palate is mouthwatering and precise, with a mineral finish that lingers. This is Chenin Blanc from a place that has no template for it, which is exactly what makes it interesting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSandlands is Tegan Passalacqua's personal project, launched in 2010 around a single premise: forgotten California varieties from old, own-rooted, dry-farmed vineyards in rocky and sandy soils. Passalacqua is a Napa Valley native who worked at Craggy Range in New Zealand, with Eben Sadie in the Swartland of South Africa, and with Alain and Maxime Graillot in the Northern Rhone before spending more than 20 years at Turley Wine Cellars, rising from harvest intern to Winemaker and Vineyard Manager. He has been steadily expanding his personal vineyard holdings in Amador County, where the geology and elevation give him something Lodi cannot. Production here is genuinely small: one foudre and 14 barrels total.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 12.4% with sea salt, chalk, and citrus threading through the palate, this is a wine for clean, precise flavors. Oysters on the half shell, grilled whole fish with lemon and herbs, sushi with yellowtail or sea bass, or roast chicken with tarragon and crème fraîche all pair naturally. The mineral finish keeps lifting the food rather than competing with it. A white wine worth opening before dinner and finishing at the table.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Stelvio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50079663882463,"sku":null,"price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P6060304.jpg?v=1780891954"},{"product_id":"guiberteau-saumur-blanc-clos-des-carmes-2021","title":"Guiberteau Saumur Blanc Clos des Carmes 2021","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Land\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe hill of Brézé sits in the Saumur appellation's innermost core, where the Loire Valley's chalky tuffeau limestone reaches closest to the surface. The Clos des Carmes is a 2.6-hectare monopole on the south-facing mid-slope of that hill, with silty-clay topsoil over tuffeau bedrock that defines the area's most compelling whites. Curnonsky, the 20th-century gastronome who spent decades mapping France's great terroirs, classified Clos des Carmes as one of three sites on the hill of Brézé worthy of \"Très Grands Vins de Saumur,\" a designation rarely invoked and worth taking seriously. High-density planting at 5,500 vines per hectare, yields capped at 30 hectoliters per hectare, and the reflective limestone subsoil give Chenin Blanc the conditions to ripen slowly and build real concentration.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e100% Chenin Blanc, from the Clos des Carmes monopole exclusively. Guiberteau declassifies fruit from the less compelling portions of the 2.6 ha; only the best hectare's worth enters this wine. Aged 18 to 24 months on lees in a combination of new and one- to two-year-old barrels, followed by time in stainless steel, then six months in bottle before release. The result is waxy lemon curd, roasted hazelnut, white peach, and lanolin, with a saline, almost electric mineral pull through the long finish. The 2021 vintage was defined by savage April frosts; some Loire producers lost 70 to 90 percent of their crop. A cool, wet summer followed, with warm and sunny conditions arriving in September and October to concentrate the surviving fruit. The 2021s have unusually high acidity, modest alcohol, and a tight, focused character that will reward patience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe People\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eRomain Guiberteau took over a small family estate in Saumur in the early 2000s and converted the vineyards to organic farming, earning AB (Agriculture Biologique) certification by 2007. He replanted the Clos des Carmes with massale-selected material beginning in 2004, working toward the vine density and low yields that define his approach throughout the estate. Brézé was a largely overlooked commune before Guiberteau's generation began demonstrating what its limestone could do. His wines are imported in the US by Becky Wasserman.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Clos des Carmes has enough structure and texture to handle real food. Pan-seared sea scallops with a butter and white wine reduction, roast chicken with tarragon cream, a gratin of celeriac and gruyère, or fresh goat cheese on toasted country bread with honey and walnuts all work well. The acidity cuts through fat and richness without disappearing. A white that earns its place at the dinner table.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harvest","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50141902176479,"sku":null,"price":155.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P6170410.jpg?v=1781757457"},{"product_id":"domaine-francois-et-julien-pinon-vouvray-sec-2023","title":"Domaine François et Julien Pinon Vouvray Sec 2023","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVouvray built its reputation on sweet wine — the appellation authority still says so — yet dry is now the leading style of still Vouvray. Pinon farms five kilometers northeast of the town in the Vallée de Cousse, a cool side valley. Fifteen hectares sit in roughly fifteen separate parcels, spreading the domaine across slopes, expositions and vine ages. The soil is argile à silex, clay studded with flint, over Lower Turonian tuffeau, the soft chalky limestone the Loire quarried for its châteaux and then hollowed out for cellars. Pinon's own survey runs 37 percent clay, 26 percent flint, 37 percent clay-siliceous. Flint drains rain and holds heat; clay at the top of the slope reacts slowly to autumn rain and buys picking time. The cellars are cut into the hillside rock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChenin Blanc, 100 percent. A still Vouvray labeled sec may carry up to 8 grams per liter of residual sugar, and the appellation attaches a condition few people hear about: total acidity must come within 2 grams of that sugar figure. That is why a sec can hold a few grams and still taste bone dry — Chenin's acid cancels the sugar out. Pinon settles the pressed juice 12 to 24 hours, then ferments without added yeast in a cellar holding both oak barrels and stainless tanks. The wine rests on fine lees until Easter, takes one racking and a filtration, and is bottled in April. Quince, green apple skin, lemon pith, chamomile, and a chalky, saline finish that runs long and narrow. 2023 was frost-free and gave a full crop, after a wet summer of heavy mildew pressure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe estate dates to 1786 and has come down through seven generations. François Pinon worked as a child psychologist before taking over from his father in 1987, and ran the domaine until his death in 2021; his son Julien, a former city planner, farms it now. François described the job as keeping the typicity of both the appellation and the vintage, and the wines still read that way: vintage first, house style second. The estate has followed organic principles since spring 2003 and holds Ecocert certification. Soils are plowed rather than treated with herbicide, and new plantings come from massale selection rather than nursery clones. Harvest is by hand, roughly 25 pickers over three weeks. Vines run 3 to 70 years old at 6,600 plants per hectare.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePinon points dry Vouvray at oysters first, and that is where to start — the flinty cut makes raw shellfish taste sweeter. Then cold poached salmon with dill and crème fraîche, where the acid handles the fat without fighting the herb; a leek and chèvre tart, chalk answering the cheese's tang; or pork rillettes on grilled bread, which is what gets eaten with this wine at home in Touraine. The bottle for the Tuesday you decided to cook properly.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Natural","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51015454949599,"sku":null,"price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P8090084.jpg?v=1786310850"},{"product_id":"badenhorst-grensloos-chenin-blanc-2023","title":"A.A. Badenhorst Grensloos Chenin Blanc 2023","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrensloos means without boundary, and the name is literal. The Jakkalsfontein road running along the base of the Paardeberg is a watershed line, and it separates the Badenhorst family's two farms, Kalmoesfontein and Jakkalsfontein. This wine crosses it. Roughly 60 percent of the fruit comes from Kalmoesfontein, planted in decomposed granite with coarse yellow granite grit and a little clay, and 40 percent from Jakkalsfontein, where the soil is deep red gravel. Seven parcels feed it, planted between 1966 and 1978, all bush-trained, all dry-farmed, sitting between 180 and 330 meters with north, east, and south exposures. Two soil types and a spread of aspects is the whole argument for the wine: no single site in the Swartland gives you everything Chenin Blanc can do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne hundred percent Chenin Blanc, and 2023 is the first vintage. Grensloos consolidates cuvees the estate previously bottled separately by site, which makes it a blend by intention rather than by shortcut. Parcels are picked on different days according to terroir, then pressed together as whole bunches. Fermentation starts spontaneously in 1,200-liter old French oak foudres and small concrete tanks, and the wine rests on its primary lees for ten months before bottling at twelve. It carries 13.5 percent alcohol, 5.6 grams per liter total acidity, pH 3.33, and 2.3 grams residual sugar. Struck-match reduction opens onto pear, white peach, citrus, dry hay, and fynbos, with layered flavor and clean acid running long. The cool, late 2023 Cape vintage, roughly 15 percent down in volume, gave whites low pH and high natural acidity at ideal ripeness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdi Badenhorst was one of the instigators of the 2010 Swartland Revolution and a founder of the Swartland Independent Producers association that grew out of it. Its charter is unusually prescriptive: indigenous yeast only, no acidification, no added tannin, no chemical fining, no reverse osmosis or watering, European oak only, and a ceiling of 25 percent new wood. The rules describe what was already happening in this cellar: old cement kuipe, basket presses, fermentations left to begin on their own. The farm uses organic and biodynamic practices without pursuing certification. The wine exists because of the 2021 purchase of Jakkalsfontein next door, taking the two farms to roughly 160 hectares of vineyard. Adi calls it the cream of the crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChenin Blanc from the Swartland with this much texture and this much acid can handle a real plate. Roast pork loin with fennel and apple is the first thing to try, since the wine's orchard fruit and the apple meet and the acidity cuts the fat. Grilled yellowtail or any firm white fish over coals, dressed with lemon and olive oil, picks up the smoky reduction. Thai green curry with chicken works because 2.3 grams of residual sugar takes the heat down without turning sweet. A washed-rind cheese like Taleggio is the sleeper pairing. Serve it at cellar temperature rather than fridge-cold, in a proper white wine glass, and give it an hour.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Maverick Wine Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51247923724511,"sku":null,"price":67.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P8220174.jpg?v=1787526008"},{"product_id":"huet-vouvray-demi-sec-le-mont-2022","title":"Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec \"Le Mont\" 2022","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLe Mont sits directly above Domaine Huet's cellars on the Première Côte of Vouvray, the south-facing slope that rises from the Loire just east of Tours. The vineyard covers about nine hectares of green-tinged clay studded with flint, silica and mica over limestone. The locals call this mix perruches. That deeper clay holds water through dry summers, and the porous tuffeau limestone below stores winter rain. The Biodyvin syndicate describes the soil as pebbly flint over deep green clay, and that flint is why Le Mont wines carry a smoky, stony edge the estate's other sites do not. Le Mont is usually the last of Huet's three vineyards to be picked, and its Chenin Blanc tends to be tight in youth. It is one of the defining terroirs of the Loire Valley.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec Le Mont 2022 is 100 percent Chenin Blanc, picked by hand in successive passes through the vineyard. Whole bunches are pressed, and the juice ferments with indigenous yeasts, split roughly evenly between tank and old demi-muids, in tuffeau cellars that hold around 13 degrees Celsius. Bottling comes in April after the harvest. Demi-sec here means roughly 21 grams of residual sugar, balanced by Chenin's acidity so the wine reads as off-dry rather than sweet. 2022 brought a nearly frost-free spring, 40 degree heat in mid-June and three summer heat waves. The deep roots found water and the drought kept disease away. Harvest began September 8 and ran six weeks. Expect quince, ripe pear, honeysuckle and beeswax, then a smoky, flinty, slightly earthy palate and a long, saline finish.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVictor Huet came to Vouvray from Paris in 1928 and bought the first vines on Le Haut-Lieu with his son Gaston. Gaston survived years as a prisoner of war, came home to build the estate, and added Clos du Bourg and then Le Mont in the 1950s. His son-in-law Noël Pinguet ran the cellar from 1976 to 2012. He began biodynamic trials in 1988, and in 1996 he helped found the growers' association behind the Biodyvin label. Domaine Huet is Biodyvin certified today. The Hwang family bought the estate in the early 2000s. Jean-Bernard Berthomé, a longtime member of the team, carried the cellar after Pinguet. Benjamin Joliveau, a Vouvray native, now makes the wines. Few estates anywhere have kept this kind of consistency through three changes of leadership.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChill it, but not too hard; around 50 degrees opens the aromatics. Thai green curry with chicken and eggplant is the natural partner, since the touch of sweetness tames the chili and the acidity cuts the coconut. Roast pork loin with caramelized apples and sage works on the same logic. Seared scallops in brown butter pick up the wine's waxy texture. Finish with a ripe Sainte-Maure de Touraine, the local goat cheese, whose salt meets the wine's fruit. This is the bottle that makes takeout feel like a decision.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Natural","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67940918984927,"sku":null,"price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/PA080481.jpg?v=1791502416"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/collections\/image_23c86f95-d92d-4006-afd4-b60709a8e01e.jpg?v=1632675214","url":"https:\/\/danverwinemerchant.com\/collections\/chenin-blanc.oembed","provider":"Denver Wine Merchant","version":"1.0","type":"link"}