Canadians didn’t invent beer, but we do like to drink it. Being a new resident of Cape Town, I’ve noticed that the women here don’t drink beer, they drink white wine. So when Wine Magazine offered me a spot at the Chenin Blanc Public Challenge, I figured it was time to do some tasting.
Top 10 things I learned about wine at the Wine Magazine Chenin Blanc Public Challenge
1. Chenin Blanc is an extremely complex grape. The juice is very responsive and, while in the celler, will take on whatever flavour you want it to, and sometimes the flavours you don’t. Because of this adaptability, it is very tricky to pin down exactly what a bottle of Chenin will taste like when you pick one up. The Chenin Blanc Association of South Africa (CBASA) has six different recognized styles to help the consumer differentiate between the Chenin styles.
2. The six styles of Chenin Blanc according to the CBASA
Fresh & fruity – (less than 9 g/? residual sugar)
Rich & ripe – unwooded – (less than 9 g/? residual sugar)
Rich & ripe – wooded – (less than 9 g/? residual sugar)
Rich & ripe – slightly sweet – (between 9 and 30 g/? residual sugar)
Sweet – (more than 30 g/? residual sugar)
Sparkling – Tank fermented
Cap Classique
We tasted 12 different wines in total. I really enjoyed the Kanu KCB Chenin Blanc. Overall, the crowd seemed to enjoy the fresh & fruity variety over the rich & ripe wooded variety.
3. Wine should always have a story. Sometimes the story is the soil the grapes are grown in or the age of the vines, and sometimes it’s about the challenges of the wine maker’s journey. Sometimes it’s just a story of how it was consumed.
4. Chenin Blanc likes it hot. Graham Beck’s award winning winemaker, Erika Obermeyer, told us her wine making trick – she takes Fridays off. Not because she’s lazy, but because giving the grapes one last weekend in the scorching Cape Winelands sun gives the grapes just a little more time to sweeten.
5. US president, Barack Obama, chose to celebrate his historic 2008 win with a bottle of South Africa’s Graham Beck Brut NV.
6. People are very passionate about their wine. Descriptors used throughout the night included: lush, juicy and ripe. After the third flight the crowd began to get a little rowdy and some very different words were used about some of the wooded wines.
7. A R127 bottle of wine sometimes tastes like stainless steel. A R45 bottle is sometimes a crowd favourite (hint: try the Boschendel Chenin Blanc 2009)
8. Morning wine drinking is encouraged. On two occasions people referenced drinking breakfast wine. Our speaker, Erika Obermeyer, told us that the fresh & fruity Chenin Blanc is an “˜easy wine to drink at every hour of the day’. My russian neighbour told me that Graham Beck Méthode Cap Classique (MCC) is the only bubbly he drinks in the morning.
9. Wine tasting should never be attended alone, the more the merrier. But if you are on your own, by the time the second flight is poured everyone is your friend.
10. Of the of Chenin Blanc grapes produced in South Africa, only 1% is used to create high-end wine. The other 99% goes to brandy production.
