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- Chenin Blanc
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Pure and precise with a fine bead and great balance. Classic Chenin pear and apple aromatics with a streak of lemon. Vibrantly textured with a lemony freshness and a hint of toast on the finish. (DWWA 2022)
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Charismatic lemon curd, ripe apricot and apple pie laced with sweet vanilla. Exceptionally juicy and luscious with zippy citrus acidity and a lengthy saline persistence. (2026 DWWA)
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What a great Chenin Blanc - beautifully perfumed like magnolia flowers, with delicate, sweet, yet zesty floral notes right at the front. Sourced from the limestone soils of the Vista Verde vineyard in San Benito County, this wine feels like a study in restraint. Joseph Ryan's winemaking choices include a light press of the clusters, fermentation in neutral French oak puncheons, and a patient 18-month elevage, including six months in stainless steel before bottling. Ryan says it helps to 'tighten' the wine’s frame, focusing the fruit and refreshing the acidity after its time in wood. The high acidity supports a palate that shows a lightly viscous, slightly waxy mouthfeel with flavors of quince paste, crunchy pears, and lemon peel. While the citrus notes dominate through the finish, there's a somewhat savory, umami note at the end that grounds the floral lift. It's a wine that feels very intentional and interesting.
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Maison Laudacius is a cooperative of growers based in the small appellation of Montlouis-sur-Loire. Founded in 1961, it brings together 18 farming families working sustainably across the three villages that define the appellation. The vineyards are rooted in clay and silica soils over the region’s signature Turonian chalk, a defining geological feature of this stretch of the Loire Valley. All farming is certified under Terra Vitis, an organization dedicated to promoting sustainable vineyard practices. The Laudacius Chenin Blanc is a blend of parcels drawn from these clay-limestone soils. It is fermented and aged entirely in stainless steel, preserving freshness and purity of fruit. The wine is fermented dry and shows a clean, mineral-driven profile that makes it a versatile partner at the table - particularly with seafood, seabass crudo, or fresh goat cheese.
Insider's Advantage
The 2023 Aperture Chenin Blanc hails from the Clarksburg AVA near California's Sierra Foothills. Winemaker Jesse Katz says that the 40-year-old, dry-farmed vines there benefit from cooling breezes that come in from the San Joaquin River Valley. Fermentation was done in various vessels (cement, neutral French oak, and stainless steel) to preserve the freshness and transparency of fruit from what Katz noted was an early-ripening vintage. An Incredibly bright nose of pear, white peach, white pepper, and chalky minerals with springtime flowers marks the nose. Acid-driven freshness is immediately prevalent on the palate, like a fresh squeeze of lemon intermixed with lemon zest, lime blossoms, apricots, marionberry, and white raspberry. The flavours are all fueled by a saline-mineral finish that keeps everything super bright and lifted. Easily one of the brightest, most focused expressions of this wine ever, and at 12.2% alcohol, it is eminently food-friendly and an easy quaffer.
The 2025 Chenin Blanc Heringer is the second edition of this bottling for Ridge, sourced from a vineyard in Clarksburg. It's nicely rounded, tropical and lightly grippy. Ripe golden mango, chamomile, orange peel, white flowers and fresh ginger saturate the tongue, echoing with an enticing perception of fruit sweetness and a kick of gentle tannin. Stylish. (BN)
Founded in 2011 by Eric Railsback and Justin Willett, Lieu Dit was created around a shared interest in Loire Valley grape varieties. Its name is the French term for a named vineyard site, reflecting the project’s focus on place. This 2025 Chenin Blanc comes from California’s Santa Ynez Valley.
The 2022 Saumur Blanc "À l’Ecart" from Clotilde Legrand is a superb young bottle of chenin blanc. The wine is already starting to show a bit of that chalk dustiness of young chenin and is best, if drunk now, to be given twenty to thirty minutes in decanter to blossom. Once it opens up, it delivers a superbly complex bouquet of apple, quince, a beautiful base of soil tones, a touch of orange peel, lanolin, dried flowers and a hint of incipient beeswax in the upper register. On the palate the wine is crisp, full-bodied, focused and soil-driven in personality, with a great core of fruit, a fine spine of acidity, excellent backend grip and lovely balance on the long and complex finish. I suspect that this will go through a period of hibernation a few years down the road, like a top flight Vouvray Sec, but for the moment it is drinking very well indeed with a bit of aeration. It will be long-lived.
Founded by David Stare in 1972, Dry Creek Vineyard was the first new winery established in Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley after Prohibition. This 2025 Chenin Blanc comes from Clarksburg, a Sacramento River Delta growing area with a long-standing connection to the grape.
Founded in 1978 in Napa Valley’s Stags Leap District, Pine Ridge Vineyards built its reputation around California winemaking. Its 2025 Chenin Blanc-Viognier brings together two distinct white grape varieties in a California blend, extending the producer’s range beyond its well-known Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon wines.
This 100% Chenin Blanc is crafted from three sustainably farmed, old-vine parcels in South Africa’s Swartland region — one on the shale and schist soils of Kasteelberg, and two on decomposed granite in the Paardeberg. All vineyards are dry-farmed and bush-trained, with vines over 40 years old. The grapes were hand-harvested, chilled, and whole-bunch pressed before settling overnight. Fermentation occurred naturally over six weeks in a mix of older French oak barrels and stainless steel tanks. After fermentation, the wine was blended and bottled, highlighting both site and varietal purity.
Orange blossoms, sliced pears, persimmons and melon on the nose of this fruity white. It’s medium- to full-bodied with good fruit ripeness and freshness combined.
Vouvray lies on the Loire’s right bank, just east of Tours, with vineyards spread across limestone slopes and plateaus. Chenin Blanc is the appellation’s signature grape and the variety behind Domaine du Viking’s 2018 Vouvray Tendre, connecting this white to one of the Loire’s historic winegrowing areas.
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Founded in 1983 by Catherine and Didier Champalou, Domaine Champalou is a family estate dedicated to Vouvray and its emblematic Chenin Blanc grape. The 2025 Vouvray Sec represents the appellation’s dry-wine tradition, rooted in the Loire Valley near Tours.
Insider's Advantage
Coming from the Ballentine Vineyard in St. Helena and aged six months in 20% new Austrian oak, the 2024 Chenin Blanc has a medium-gold hue as well as golden apple, dried herbs, lanolin, and savory mineral nuances. It's medium-bodied, clean, crisp, and balanced, with a delicious, layered style that will make it incredibly versatile on the dinner table. Drink this charming effort over the coming 2-3 years.
New
Birichino was founded in Santa Cruz in 2008 by Alex Krause and John Locke. For this 2025 Chenin Blanc, the winery turns south to old vines at Jurassic Park Vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley, part of California’s Santa Barbara County.
Founded by David Stare in 1972, Dry Creek Vineyard was the first new winery established in Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley after Prohibition. The family-owned winery’s 2024 Chenin Blanc draws on grapes from Clarksburg, a California growing area in the Sacramento River Delta with a longstanding connection to the variety.
One of the only Chenin Blancs made in Washington, this wine comes from very special vines across three sites, all planted in 1979, making them some of Washington's oldest, irrespective of variety. Fantastic fresh white florals, sweet white peaches and an alluring note of candied citrus. The palate is crisp and the fruit centered flavour profile shows rich honeydew melon, juicy Meyer lemon pulp and a touch of ripe mandarin, all of this carried on a streaking saline minerality through the finish. (CP)
The 2023 "Cuvée de Silex" from Domaine des Aubuisières is an excellent bottle of young Vouvray Sec, clearly showing its flinty soil signature on both the nose and palate. This bottling is made from vines that range from fifty to more than sixty years of age. The bouquet wafts from the glass in a complex blend of quince, apple, the first signs of lanolin, white flowers, beeswax and a beautiful foundation of flinty minerality. On the palate the wine is deep, crisp and full-bodied, with a lovely core of fruit, excellent focus, a lovely foundation of soil tones and a long, complex and impeccably balanced finish. This is excellent Vouvray!
Like the Vouvray, harvest happens early in the morning for the Fondraux and the grapes are immediately pressed. The juice in then transferred into 500-L wooden barrels for a slow fermentation. The finished wine has 16 g/L of residual sugar. Each vintage, the balance and residual sugar is determined by tasting. When the right balance is achieved, the wine is chilled to stop fermentation. The wine is aged in the same vessel on its lees for eleven months before bottling.
Established over 50 years ago, the 4th generation of the Denis family now runs this operation. Julien is the winemaker, Stephane in charge of the viticulture and Vincent oversees the administration and sales. Over the last decades the property has grown from 5 to 80 hectares that stretch across the appellation including some very select parcels in the Côteaux du Layon (home of one of the region's great dessert wines).
The Vouvray "Cuvée Gérald" from Domaine des Aubuisières is named for Charles Lesaffre’s grandfather, Gérald Bruley de Varannes, who is the gentleman who originally sold these vineyards to the Fouquet family. It is the new name for the cuvée that used to be called "les Girardières" and is made from sixty year-old vines planted on flinty soils. The wine is finished as a Demi-Sec in the 2023 vintage. The bouquet is excellent, wafting from the glass in a mix of apple, quince, beeswax, flinty soil tones, lanolin and white flowers. On the palate the wine is vibrant, focused and complex, with lovely depth of fruit at the core, excellent soil signature, a fine spine of acidity and a long, seamlessly balanced, complex and vibrant finish. This is fine, fine juice.
Philippe Foreau is the third-generation proprietor of Domaine du Clos Naudin, a family-run Vouvray estate established in 1923. This 2019 Brut is made from Chenin Blanc using the méthode traditionnelle, in which the wine’s secondary fermentation takes place in the bottle—the same foundational sparkling-wine process used in Champagne.
Though I tasted this from bottle four years ago and gave a score of 100 points, I opened another bottle of the 2003 Vouvray Cuvée Constance recently to compare it with the 2015, and the 2003 vintage proves to be an outstanding sweet wine. The nose is intense, ripe, generous and precise, with aromas of dates rolled in bacon, nuts, almonds and dried and stewed stone fruit. On the palate, this is a highly concentrated, sweet but structured Chenin with fine tannins and a sweet, long and intense finish. The same wine from the bottle opened in 2015 is fascinatingly complex on the nose, with spicy tobacco flavors and searing acidity. What grip and tension here. It offers mocha and nougat flavors, great tension, raisins, apricots, salts and crushed stones. (SR)
This innovative and always impressive blend of Chenin Blanc and 37% Verdelho comes from five different regions, featuring parcels on granite, sandstone, schist and shale soils. Layered, understated and effortlessly complex, this is savoury, stony and bone dry, all lemongrass, yellow apple and subtle stone fruit flavours with leesy texture and a mouth-watering finish.
From the importer: "The Tendre is made from 100% Chenin Blanc from flint soils in Reugny rather than the more typical tuffeau soils one finds further to the south and west in Vouvray. Harvest by hand and rigorously sorted at the cellar, the grapes are pressed and ferment spontaneously in tank. With a small amount of residual sugar, just too much to be called sec and far too little to be classified as a demi-sec, the Tendre is a versatile wine at the table as you would no doubt experience should you visit the Viking."
Insider's Advantage
Chenin Blanc originated in France’s Loire Valley, where it remains a defining white grape. Rococo’s 2025 “Own Rooted” places the variety on California’s Central Coast, a broad winegrowing region extending from the San Francisco Bay area south to Santa Barbara County.
Thibaud Boudignon, originally from Bordeaux, developed his passion for viticulture during childhood holidays in his grandfather’s vineyards and went on to work at top estates such as Lafite-Rothschild, Canon-la-Gaffelière, and Château Olivier, as well as gaining international experience in Australia’s Yarra Valley and Burgundy’s Gevrey-Chambertin. In 2007, he became winemaker at Château Soucherie in the Loire Valley, where he deepened his connection to the region before starting his own project in 2009. Using inheritance from his mother, he acquired small parcels in Anjou and Savennières, focusing on producing dry Chenin Blanc of exceptional precision and purity. Thibaud farms organically, spending much of his time in the vineyards to ensure the health of his vines and the quality of his fruit. Today, from his estate near Savennières, he crafts a small, thrilling range of wines that rank among the world’s most exciting expressions of Chenin Blanc. Anjou Cuvée Domaine is 100% Chenin Blanc from 35-year-old vines on schist and rhyolite soils, fermented with indigenous yeasts, no malo, and aged in barrels with a higher proportion of new oak (around 35%), giving it a distinctive smoky, oaky character. Sourced mainly from parcels in Bonnezeaux and Faye-d’Anjou, the wine offers a precise snapshot of Anjou each vintage, balancing ripe fruit, minerality, and acidity.
Menetou-Salon lies southwest of Sancerre in the Loire Valley, where Kimmeridgian limestone connects the appellation’s geology with that of Chablis. Isabelle et Pierre Clément’s 2025 Menetou-Salon white comes in a 375ml half-bottle, half the size of a standard wine bottle.
Thibaud Boudignon, originally from Bordeaux, developed his passion for viticulture during childhood holidays in his grandfather’s vineyards and went on to work at top estates such as Lafite-Rothschild, Canon-la-Gaffelière, and Château Olivier, as well as gaining international experience in Australia’s Yarra Valley and Burgundy’s Gevrey-Chambertin. In 2007, he became winemaker at Château Soucherie in the Loire Valley, where he deepened his connection to the region before starting his own project in 2009. Using inheritance from his mother, he acquired small parcels in Anjou and Savennières, focusing on producing dry Chenin Blanc of exceptional precision and purity. Thibaud farms organically, spending much of his time in the vineyards to ensure the health of his vines and the quality of his fruit. Today, from his estate near Savennières, he crafts a small, thrilling range of wines that rank among the world’s most exciting expressions of Chenin Blanc. Anjou Cuvée Domaine is 100% Chenin Blanc from 35-year-old vines on schist and rhyolite soils, fermented with indigenous yeasts, no malo, and aged in barrels with a higher proportion of new oak (around 35%), giving it a distinctive smoky, oaky character. Sourced mainly from parcels in Bonnezeaux and Faye-d’Anjou, the wine offers a precise snapshot of Anjou each vintage, balancing ripe fruit, minerality, and acidity.
A stunning old vine Chenin from Craig Haarmeyer. Winery Notes: "The Palmero Family Vineyard was planted in 1983 by Gerald Cresci on a rocky swale in the Borden Ranch sub-AVA of Lodi. The soils are austere: pink granite and quartz. It was foot treaded for skin contact, fermented in puncheon and oval shaped cask on gross lees for 12 months. Bottled unfiltered and unfined on August 3. 110 cases produced."
Clarksburg, set within California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, has a long-standing association with Chenin Blanc. Haarmeyer’s 2025 “St. Rey – SRV” places the grape and this distinctive Delta growing area at the center of a contemporary California white wine.
The 2023 Grüner Veltliner Mühlpoint Smaragd is harvested in this site's upper, stonier part, directly bordering Steinertal. Beautiful fern, gentle yeast and fresh moss send green signals of freshness. The palate is a picture of smooth yeast, calm concentration and elongated freshness. This Grüner exemplifies the house style, peppery, smooth and long with serene subtlety and more pepper on the finish. (Bone-dry)(AK)
Xavier Weisskopf founded Le Rocher des Violettes in 2005 in Saint-Martin-le-Beau, within the Montlouis-sur-Loire appellation. The 2022 “Touche-Mitaine” is made from Chenin Blanc, the defining white grape of Montlouis, an appellation situated on the Loire’s left bank opposite Vouvray.
Vouvray’s vineyards sit along the Loire east of Tours, where Chenin Blanc has shaped the appellation’s identity for centuries. Domaine de la Fontainerie’s 2009 “Le C” carries the traditional Moelleux designation, identifying it as a sweet expression of Vouvray rather than the appellation’s dry or sparkling styles.
Chenin Blanc has deep roots in France’s Loire Valley, while this 2023 Norgard bottling places the historic grape in Mendocino County. Produced by T. Berkley, it presents a contemporary California interpretation of a variety cultivated for centuries.
Insider's Advantage
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Clarksburg sits within the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, where Chenin Blanc has a long-established presence among the region’s vineyards. Haarmeyer’s 2024 “St. Rey – SRV” is a California-grown expression of the grape from this distinctive Delta winegrowing area.
Chenin Blanc has deep roots in Anjou, the Loire district surrounding Angers. Thibaud Boudignon established his own domaine after winemaking experience in Bordeaux and Australia; his 2023 “Clos Devant le Jeu” brings that international background to a varietal Chenin Blanc under the Anjou Blanc appellation.
Vouvray lies on the Loire’s right bank, just east of Tours, and has held appellation status since 1936. Chenin Blanc is the defining grape of this historic growing area and the variety behind the 2024 Les Chancelieres, placing it within one of the Loire Valley’s established white-wine traditions.
Thibaud Boudignon, originally from Bordeaux, developed his passion for viticulture during childhood holidays in his grandfather’s vineyards and went on to work at top estates such as Lafite-Rothschild, Canon-la-Gaffelière, and Château Olivier, as well as gaining international experience in Australia’s Yarra Valley and Burgundy’s Gevrey-Chambertin. In 2007, he became winemaker at Château Soucherie in the Loire Valley, where he deepened his connection to the region before starting his own project in 2009. Using inheritance from his mother, he acquired small parcels in Anjou and Savennières, focusing on producing dry Chenin Blanc of exceptional precision and purity. Thibaud farms organically, spending much of his time in the vineyards to ensure the health of his vines and the quality of his fruit. Today, from his estate near Savennières, he crafts a small, thrilling range of wines that rank among the world’s most exciting expressions of Chenin Blanc. The Cuvée François(e) is Boudignon’s top Anjou, named in tribute to his grandfather (Francois) and mother (Francoise), made from the best lots of 35-year-old vines on shallow schist, rhyolite, and sandy soils. Fermented with indigenous yeast in mostly older oak (about 20% new), then aged in barrel and tank, it’s a powerful, precise wine with explosive fruit, a long, detailed finish, and great aging potential.
Lemon sorbet and sage mix with wet stones and dusty dried flowers as the 2023 Chenin Blanc Old Vines evolves in the glass. This is wickedly fresh, with a citrus tinge up front followed by ripe pit fruits and inner herbal tones. A core of zesty acidity lends energy. The 2023 tapers off with a citrus concentration and pleasant chew, leaving behind perfumed inner florals and a lovely mineral tinge. This is fantastic and represents a remarkable value. (EG)
El Dorado County sits in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills, east of Sacramento. Haarmeyer’s 2024 “Gold Hill - Peeps Vineyard” Chenin Blanc offers a California expression of the grape behind France’s Vouvray and Savennières, connecting a classic Loire Valley variety with a Sierra foothill vineyard source.
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