Learning to spot Chenin Blanc, one glass at a time

Most people can pick Sauvignon Blanc out of a line-up within a second or two. Chenin Blanc takes longer, because it doesn't lead with one loud flavour. It leads with a shape: the way it sits in your mouth, the way it finishes. Learn that shape once and you have it for life.

The quickest way to learn it is with a bottle that hands you a comparison. Coterie by Wildeberg does exactly that, putting old-vine Chenin from Franschhoek alongside Grenache Blanc grown on warmer slopes in Paarl. Two white grapes, one glass, doing completely different jobs.

Work out which part of the wine is which, and you've effectively taught yourself to recognise Chenin blind.

The two things Chenin does

The first is texture. Chenin fills the middle of your mouth in a way most light whites simply don't, spreading sideways across the tongue rather than running straight down it. In the 2023 that broad, slightly waxy weight is unmistakable once you go looking for it.

The second is the finish. Chenin holds onto its acidity even when the fruit is properly ripe, so the wine arrives generous and leaves you fresh, with that mouth-watering pull that makes you want another sip. Not sharpness. More like a clean edge under all the weight.

Hold both in the same mouthful, richness and cut together, and you're almost certainly holding Chenin Blanc. Very few white grapes manage that combination without help.

Texture is grown, not made

Here's the part that took me a while to understand during cellar seasons in the Cape: you can't manufacture that mouthfeel with clever winemaking. It comes from the vineyard.

The Chenin in this blend comes from a low-yielding Franschhoek block of old bush vines. Untrellised, unhurried, roots working deep for water, they ripen slowly and give small quantities of concentrated fruit. That concentration is what you're feeling as weight on your palate, and it's why old-vine Chenin tastes denser than young-vine Chenin even when the alcohol is similar.

What makes it more interesting still is who is farming it. Wildeberg sits on a wild slope above the Franschhoek valley that was an equestrian farm until recently, a piece of ground with no inherited vineyard habits attached to it. JD Rossouw, who grew up among the valley's oldest vineyards, makes the wine with Ryno Booysen. New estate, old vines, no house style being imposed on either.

Coterie by Wildeberg Chenin Blanc Grenache Blanc maturing in the cellar, ageing and

The Grenache Blanc is your control sample

Now for the useful trick. Pour a glass and smell it before you taste. That first lift of perfume off the surface (jasmine, with a flick of white spice) is not the Chenin talking.

That's the Grenache Blanc, from younger plantings in Paarl where warmer slopes and arid soils bring out the variety's natural scent. It sits above the wine rather than inside it, all aroma and lift, with far less of that broad palate weight.

So: subtract the perfume. What's left underneath, the flesh across your tongue and the fresh finish that follows, is Chenin doing its work. This is why blends can teach you more in one glass than a single-variety bottle does in three. You get the contrast built in.

Nothing in the cellar is hiding the lesson

Both parts ferment naturally on their own wild yeasts, then settle for six months on lees in French oak barrels of six hundred litres. Larger barrels mean less wood surface touching the wine, and these are second and third fill, so there's no new-oak flavour painted over the top.

That matters for what you can learn here. Heavy new oak gives you sweet spice and a creamy roundness that can be mistaken for the grape's own texture, and plenty of people have blamed Chenin for things a barrel did. Here the barrels give a little breathing room and gentle softening, and then get out of the way.

The wine is coarsely filtered and nothing more, which leaves its natural shape intact. A hands-off approach, and a generous one if you're trying to taste a vineyard rather than a recipe.

Drink it at 10 degrees, with something on the plate

Serve it too cold and you'll mute the very things you're trying to notice. Around 10 degrees is the mark: cool enough to feel fresh, warm enough for the texture and the jasmine to show up. Twenty minutes out of the fridge usually does it.

Food makes the lesson clearer still. A Thai green fish curry with lemongrass and coriander picks up the aromatic side of the wine, while the Chenin weight stands up to the coconut and chilli without being flattened. On a warm September evening, a whole sea bass on the barbecue with herbs and lemon is the happier route, and grilled tiger prawns with garlic and chilli, a squeeze of lime over the top, work just as well.

When the weather turns, roast chicken with tarragon and crème fraîche is the quiet, Sunday-shaped version of the same match. And there's a Cape Malay chicken curry with yellow rice in this wine's future, if you cook one.

It's drinking beautifully now, and there's more in reserve: the old-vine Chenin backbone will carry a 750ml bottle happily for a few more years in a cool, dark spot, with the fruit deepening towards honey and beeswax as the floral notes settle back. Worth buying two, then, if only to taste the difference later.

If you're curious about what Chenin Blanc actually does when nothing in the cellar is covering for it, Coterie by Wildeberg is a generous teacher and a very good drink either way. Open it alongside a curry or a whole fish off the barbecue, and pay attention to the finish.