TonghamTaster’s French Wine Tasting Course – week 8 Loire Chenin Blanc Whites

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INTRODUCTION
The Loire Valley is justly famous for its wonderful Chenin Blanc white wines of the middle Loire around Vouvray and Layon. However, for the casual consumer these can be confusing as the wines vary from dry to off-dry to medium to sweet. What is worse is that this is not always clear from the bottle. Lets try to help! This week we will also cover the lovely sparkling wines of the region.

LOCALITY
The middle Loire that grows the chenin blanc grape stretches quite a way from Anjou and Saumur to Touraine.

VARIETALS
The grape we are mainly covering this week is the Chenin Blanc varietal. It is not as well regarded as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, probably because of the confusing variety of styles from one area.
The sparkling wines of the area often contain chardonnay and cabernet franc as well as chenin blanc but can contain all of the Loire grape varieties except for Sauvignon Blanc.

THE WINES

There are many different styles of Chenin Blanc in the Loire Valley and many different appellations.
Dry – the best dry chenin blanc whites come from the Savennieres AOC.
Off Dry – the wines of Vouvray and Mont Louis are often off-dry but can be any style. Many other appellations fit the off-dry category as well. Another worth trying if you like a very honey tasting wine but still relatively dry is Jasnieres.
Sweet – The main sweet chenin blanc wine area of the Loire is the Coteaux du Layon. Within this area the very best wines come from Bonnezeaux and Quarts de Chaume.
Sparkling – The sparkling wines of the Loire are for me really good value but also often high quality. The Chenin Blanc gives them a taste somewhat different to Champagne. Good sparkling wines can be found in the Vouvray, Mont Louis, Saumur and the generic Cremant de Loire appellation.

Saumur

THE TASTE
Chenin Blanc wines tend to have a honey taste and often some floral overtones. Any sweetness tends to be balanced by a crisp acidity in the better wines.
The sparkling wines of the Loire tend to have a real yeasty and creamy taste that I really like.

TOP TIPS
• The sparkling wines of the Loire can be an excellent value alternative to Champagne.
• The still white Chenin Blancs of the Loire are quite unique and still good value. They are good aperitif wines if you have a sweet tooth or otherwise good food wines.

HOMEWORK
For your homework this week you need to buy and try any Loire Chenin Blanc. You might want to try one of my recommendations below:

If going for a dry white – Waitrose – Chateau des Vaults La Jalousie 2009 Savennieres – about £14.
If going for an off-dry white – Laithwaites – Reserve Champalou 2008 Vouvray – about £12.
If going for sweet white and you are local to Farnham – Imbibros – Chateau de la Roulerie 2009 Coteau du Layon – about £8 a half bottle.
You might also consider a trip down to Les Caves des Pyrenes in Guildord to see their selection.

FOOD PAIRINGS
The sweet wines make great dessert wines or are good with Foire Gras or some of the adventurous pairings I suggested for Sauternes in an earlier blog.
The off-dry whites make a good pairing for Thai food.
The dry Savennieres are great with many food items. On this Valentines Day I paired one with a hard cheese course, salmon ceviche, veal escallopes with a porcini and white truffle sauce, and a lemon risotto. All worked really well.

COMING SOON
Next week we continue our wine tour of the Loire Valley and discover my favourite Sauvignon Blanc whites of Sancerre and surrounds.

If you missed the early weeks of this course, it is not too late to catch up. Just click on the French Wine Course link at the top of this page.

September 2008

My wine of the month for September is an incredible value red wine at only £4.49 from Lidl (yes, Lidl!); it is Baturrica Tarragona Gran Reserva DO (both the 2001 or 2002 are available and excellent). I cannot remember a wine I paid under five pounds for in the UK tasting so good for a very long time. It tastes very similar to a Gran Reserva Rioja and has a good balance of oak and fruit and that lovely vanilla I seek in Spanish reds. The grape varieties are Tempranilla and Cabernet Sauvignon and it has been aged in oak for at least 24 months before further ageing in the bottle as part of a total 5 years minimum ageing. I suggest you go and snap some up today. We have already enjoyed 6 bottles of this wine and blind tasted it against Gran Reserve Riojas at three times the price with surprising results!

You find bargains like this by searching for wines from unknown regions; it is highly unlikely that you will find a wine from Rioja this good at this price. The Tarrogona wine region is best known for growing grapes for sparkling Cava and also for sweet red fortified wines, as well as being famous as the port that has shipped communion wines all over the world for many years; maybe church attendances would increase if they served this Gran Reserva instead!

Serve this wine with lamb; it can take quite strong flavours so why not try roast lamb stuffed either with black tapenade and garlic or alternatively perhaps stuffed with Chorizo, red peppers and green olives.

My white wine of the month is twice the price and can be puchased at £10.00 from Laithwaites. However, the wine is so beautiful it almost seems a bargain! It is a 2005 Vouvray Reserve Champalou. This is a slightly off dry white made with Chenin Blanc grapes and comes from one of the top producers in the area. This wine is a real pleasure to drink and shows off how good this grape variety can be when made as a dryish wine.

People are put off Vouvray because there is such a mixture of styles from dry to sweet and very often no indication on the bottle as to the style. However, this is a wine to change people's minds about this appellation.

If a wine of this quality was made in Sancerre or Burgundy it would fetch a much higher price, so thank God for unfashionable wine regions!

Serve this wine alongside a cold pea soup with crispy pancetta and seafood (langoustines, prawns or monkfish). I had this dish recently in Bourges, France and my wife Jane has managed to create an excellent version since I told her about it.

Talking about eating out we visited some lovely restaurants in August. Pride of place went to Raymond Blanc's Manoir aux Quat' Saisons; this was faultless and the wine sommelier very interesting as he guided us away from any wines we knew in order to give us new experiences. His suggestions of a Cuvee Frederic Emile Trimbach Riesling 2001, a Vins de Pays des Cotes Catalanes 2006 blanc, and a red Sicilian wine made entirely with Carignano grapes (Turrigoz 1999) were excellent. More local, Kei's new Chinese Restaurant in Runfold is excellent and we enjoyed a lovely Rioja rosé wine with our meal.

Later in September we will be making our six monthly pilgimage to France for the Foires aux Vins. The exchange rate is not so favourable at the moment but we hope to still pick up some good value French wines. Amongst those wines we will be searching for will be some Christophe Cordier Macon Charnay Vielles Vignes 2007 (€9.95 at Carrefour), Domaine du Clos de Fourchis Macon Aze 2006 (€5.75 from Auchan) and some Le Clos Delorme Valencay 2006 (€6.90 from Monoprix). We will report back in next months blog.

Also in next month's blog we will report on tasting a South African Pinot Noir at over £20 a bottle and let you know our wines of the month for October.

Our next wine tasting in Tongham will be in November just after the Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived. We will be featuring wines from Beaujolais and Macon alongside some of Jane's famous French cooking. Details next month.

Good tasting and do let's have your comments.