WTF is Chenin Blanc?

Episode Transcript and Show Notes

Episode 19: WTF is Chenin Blanc? 00:00

Hello! And welcome to the Wine Pair podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and wine-pairing partner in crime - Carmela. And we are the Wine Pair.

Ok. In this episode, we are returning to the much beloved WTF series, where we taste and rate some wines that we think you should know about. This is an opportunity for us to get and give a little wine education as we explore this famous but maybe not super well known wine, at least in the US, called Chenin Blanc. We are doing this so that you can find good white wines to drink and enjoy that aren’t Chardonnay, because, let’s face it, there is a lot of Chardonnay drinking out there and there are better wines to try, or at least a lot of different kinds of wine to try!  

At least hopefully, because I am not sure that I have ever had Chenin Blanc before. Have you? So I am really excited about this because this will be new for me, too. I am excited to learn myself!

Also, one of the wines we are tasting tonight I am really intrigued by because it is a wine from Dwayne Wade. Do you know who that is? He is a very famous basketball player. You may also know his wife Gabrielle Union. Dwayne Wade had an amazing career - he has won NBA championships, Olympic Gold Medals, been the finals and the All-Star MVP. He retired from the league in 2019, but it looks like he has been busy since, and one of the things that looks to be keeping him busy is that he his own winery called D Wade Cellars. Today we are going to try his Chenin Blanc called 3 by Wade. Any idea why he calls it 3 by Wade? 3 was actually his number in basketball!

https://dwadecellars.com/ 

And, as we do in every episode, we are going to taste and rate not just this wine, but 3 wines that you should be able to easily find in your local grocery store or online wine shop, and are priced under $20. We try to release a new episode every week on Sundays. And, if you are a regular listener, please hit that subscribe button and keep coming back for more! And if you like us, we would love for you to give us a review and a rating so that other folks can find us and listen to us and maybe come back for more. Spread the love! You can review us on our website - thewinepairpodcast.com - or you can review us on Apple podcasts and other podcast services. A huge shout out to the people who have rated and reviewed us on Apple Podcasts! Just this last week a person who identified themself as “a indie music lover” left us a great review. Thank you!!! We would love others of you out there in listening land to join the ranks! You can do it right now. It’s easy. We’ll wait . . .

Broader Topic: What Ever Happened to Wine Coolers?  06:03

Ok, back to the show - BUT - before we talk about Chenin Blanc, we are going to take our customary left turn and talk about something entertaining but maybe only tangentially related to wine or the specific wine we are drinking. And this week, we are going to talk about a subject that we started reminiscing about last week but didn’t make it into our last episode, something that ended up on the cutting room floor because the episode would have been too long, and that subject is - one of our first forays into the wonderful world of wine in the form of - duh duh duh-  wine coolers!

Now, as a couple of people who had a lot of our formative years in the 1980’s, wine coolers were a thing. I mean, they were a real thing, especially for someone like me who, at the time, really did not like beer. 

But they seemed to have disappeared, and we are going to find out why - I did a little digging on the interwebs to learn more, and I think I have some solid information. But before we talk about that, let’s talk a little bit about our relationship with wine coolers. 

First, for the record, I should say that neither of us had a sip of wine cooler or any other alcohol before we were 21. Right?!? So, this is really weird because we are going to find out that wine coolers disappeared before we were 21, so it may be that we never actually had a wine cooler and this is a just a crazy dream. 

Carmela, what do you remember about wine coolers?

• Were you a Bartles and Jaymes fan or a Seagrams fan or a California Coolers fan? I feel like Bartles and James was considered a bit fancier, and so I rarely drank them. Even then I was trying to find wine related items that were reasonably priced!
  • Did you know that Bartles and Jaymes were not real people?
• Were you a 12 ounce bottle fan or the two liter bottles fan? Can you believe that they came in two liter bottles? That is dangerous!
• What do you recall about the taste? Carbonated. Fizzy. Quaffable. Super sweet, like make your stomach hurt they were so sweet
• What was your favorite color of wine cooler? They had colors rather than flavors I think.

Carmela tell a story of the pink hot tub

So what ever happened to wine coolers? I mean, from my perspective, they were super hot, and then they sort of fell off the face of the earth?!? Ok, here is some of the research I did on the interwebs, and there is an article by Wine Folly that I will post a link to in our show notes on our website. 

https://winefolly.com/lifestyle/the-rise-and-fall-of-wine-coolers/

• Evidently, they were originally made from cheap white wine combined with carbonated lemon-lime soda, and a lot of times other fruit flavors were added as well. Kind of a shitty spritz. I mean, Prosecco and Aperol Spritz are like the thing (or at least they were a few years ago), so maybe we were just ahead of our times. 
• They were the same alcohol content as a beer, so they hit less hard than a wine. Which is good, because we chugged that shit. 
• The article states that, according to the Chicago Tribune, in 1985, wine coolers accounted for almost 10% of all wine consumption in the United States. That is a lot!
• What evidently killed them off was an increase in cost. Taxes were added to wine that made them get too expensive. Taxes. Man. 
• There have been sort of comebacks of the beverage - things that are kind of like wine coolers, but they are not really wine coolers, just similar tasting - things like Zima, Smirnoff Ice, etc. - but they are made as malted beverages now. So, not wine coolers, really. I would consider all of those malted drinks, like Mike’s Hard Lemonade, to basically be malted beverage rip offs of wine coolers. Sad!

The question for me today is could we actually stand a wine cooler if we tasted one now? My guess is no. Like, I think we could take a sip, but I don’t think I would drink much of it. 

Brief overview of Chenin Blanc 16:27

Ok, let’s get back to the wine we are actually going to taste and review today - Chenin Blanc. Chenin blanc is actually a pretty popular wine globally, but I don’t think you hear about it much in the US. It doesn’t seem to me that you see it very often on wine lists in restaurants, and I am not sure the last time I saw it on the wine by the glass list at a restaurant. Lots of it is grown in South Africa, and France - but the US and Australia grow a lot as well. In South Africa, the wine is also known as Steen. In France, the most well known areas for chenin blanc are the Loire valley and Vouvray. Chenin blanc can also be a sweet dessert wine, but we are not going to be talking about that version of it. We are foscusing on the dry white version. 

So, the Vouvray thing was cool for me to learn because I know that often wines we drink as varietals like Chenin Blanc are actually named for the place they come from in their home country, and that can be a bit confusing. I love learning this stuff.  Another for instance is that the wine we love called Sauvignon Blanc is known as Sancerre when it comes from the Sancerre area in the Loire Valley in France. And, by the way, the Sancerre Rouge, which is a Pinot Noir, is one of my favorite wines. I tried that for the first time a few years ago when a colleague from France suggested it when we were out to dinner in Paris. Awesome! 

A typical Chenin Blanc is great with spicy asian foods. You know, like Thai food? Or a nice bowl of Pho? Chenin blanc is your go to. But it goes well with other foods that you might typically pair with a white wine. So, I am looking forward to tasting these today and seeing what we think.

Wines and Ratings in this Episode  18:51

Wine: Secateurs Vintage White Wine

Region: South Africa, Swartland

Producer: AA Badenhorst Family (They state that this is their “second tier” wine, which seems like a weird thing for a brand to say. I would think they would say something more kind like every day wine, or something of that nature)

Year: 2019

Price: $16.99

Retailer: Whole Foods

Alcohol: 13.5%

Grapes: Chenin Blanc, “with a sprinkling of Palomino and another secret grape”

What we tasted and smelled: tart apple, tart pear, asian pear, clean, astringent, rubbing alcohol, melon, very tart, grass. Really good with spicy food. Nice. Not sweet. 

Rating: Joe  7 Carmela  6

Wine: Three By Wade Chenin Blanc

Region: California, Napa

Producer: D Wade 

Year: 2020

Price: $17.99 (on sale)

Retailer: Whole Foods

Alcohol: 13.1%

Grapes: 95% Chenin Blanc,  5% Viognier

What we tasted and smelled: Beautiful bottle. Beautiful smell. Apple, peach, citrus, orange, pear, herbal tea. Really nice. 

Rating: Joe  9 Carmela  8

Wine: Barton & Guestier Vouvray

Region: France, Loire Valley

Producer: Barton & Guestier (Oldest wine house in Bordeaux and operates as a negociant. Negociants operate in a few different ways - some buy pre-made wine and bottle it, some buy wine and make some adjustments before bottling it, and those who take whole grapes or unfermented juice and make the wine themselves)

Year: 2020

Price: $12.99

Retailer: QFC

Alcohol: 12%

Grapes: Chenin Blanc

What we tasted and smelled: Stone, herb, earth, fresh air, sweet, sweet ice tea, honey, candy, cotton candy, over-sweet apple, mealy apple. Not as great with food. 

Rating: Joe 4    Carmela  6

Taste profiles expected in a Chenin Blanc:  36:07

• Quince - what the fuck is a quince (yellow and sort of pear looking, very sour and bitter - think of it as a sour pear), yellow apple, pear, chamomile tea (apple, honey, and floral), honey. I hate these kinds of descriptions because they feel so esoteric.
• South Africa - tend to be more tart
• Can also have flavors of asian pear, orange blossom, allspice, ginger, tarragon (do you know what tarragon tastes like?), honeydew melon, lemon and lemon curd, jasmine (sweet and floral), cream
• Vanilla, salted butter, yellow raisin, saffron, marzipan, tarragon

Ok. Which of these wines are you finishing tonight!??! Three by Wade!!!

Outro and how to find us 38:53

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