The Best Wines You Don't Know About

BY GAETANO MARANGELLI

It was night. It was summer. I was in an alley in a city in a foreign country.

I was lost.

I was in Bologna, Italy, meeting friends for a play. But I couldn’t find the theater. Nobody else was around me. Except for a stranger in an ochre cape closing upon me from the opposite side of the alley. “Do I look away and pass the stranger by?” I asked myself. “Or do I look up and greet the stranger?”

“Buona sera,” I say to the stranger.

“You’re looking for the theater,” the stranger says to me. “I’ll take you there.”

As my days and weeks and months in Italy passed me by, the stranger in the ochre cape became my best friend. But I didn’t see that ochre cape again. My friend, whose name was Carmen, didn’t customarily wear clothes twice. Carmen wore a kaleidoscope of stylish clothes, and Carmen wore all of them beautifully.

But it was more than that. Every time I saw Carmen, Carmen didn’t just appear to me. Carmen appeared to me like characters out of books and paintings and plays and movies. James Bond. Blanche DuBois. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Holly Golightly.

Chenin blanc is native to the Loire Valley of France, where the grape thrives in the regions of Vouvray, Savennières, Saumur, Anjou, and the Coteaux du Layon. The regions of Stellenbosch, Swartland, and the Coastal Region of South Africa, along with the California regions of the Central Valley, Clarksburg, Mendocino, the Sierra Foothills and Santa Barbara also cultivate quality chenin blanc wines.

In the Old World and the New, chenin blanc makes wines in a kaleidoscope of styles. The colors of the chenin blanc kaleidoscope reflect the soils of where its vines are being grown, the climate of their regions, and the kinds of wines their growers like drinking. The high acidity of the chenin blanc grape makes every color in its kaleidoscope deeper, sharper, more intense.

Chenin blanc appears before you. A stranger in an alley on a summer night in a foreign county. You can look away and pass the stranger by. Or you can look up and make a friend for life.

AN INTRODUCTORY PRIMER TO THE STYLES OF CHENIN BLANC

Dry Chenin Blanc Dry means all of the sugars of the grapes in the wine ferment into alcohol. These chenin blanc wines are bright and svelte, with aromas and flavors of green and yellow grove and orchard fruits. Cool Loire Valley regions impart their chenin blancs with honeysuckle and jasmine. Warm regions of South Africa and California, with summer melon and tropical fruit.

Off-Dry and Sweet Chenin Blanc Styles where the sugars of the grapes in the wine do not completely ferment into alcohol or the wine includes grapes affected

by botrytis cinerea, a mold which concentrates a grape’s flavors and sugars. These wines have viscousy textures and rich flavors of passion fruit, honey, and ginger.

Sparkling Chenin Blanc Whether dry or demi-sec, chenin blanc makes the best sparkling wines which aren’t made in the regions of Champagne. Aromas and flavors of apple, pear, plum, quince, and wild summer flowers.

Which Chenin Blanc The best appellations of chenin blanc to begin exploring are those of the Loire Valley. The 2019 Domaine Filliatreau Chateau Fouquet Saumur Blanc reminds me of Carmen in that ochre cape.

2019 Domaine Filliatreau Chateau Fouquet Saumur Blanc Appellation: Saumur Soils: Clay and limestone Farming: Certified biodynamic Winemaking: Natural, with additives restricted to 20 mgs. per liter of sulfur at press and 20 mgs. per liter of sulfur at bottling. Importer: Louis Dressner Selections Price: $22.99

Gaetano Marangelli is a sommelier and playwright. He was the managing director of a wine import and distribution company in New York and beverage director for restaurants and retailers in New York and Chicago before moving to Wauwatosa.