Pine Ridge in my fridge.

This Chenin blanc-Viognier from Pine Ridge Vineyards is a wine that I have always found to be a pleasant tipple.  Well, nearly always.  I seem to recall that I really didn't care for the 2007 vintage (or, was it the 2008?) as it was simply just too sweet for my liking.  A mere $10.00 at my local supermarket (actually, I paid $9.89) this wine is great value.  As a matter of fact, this wine is cheaper to buy at the supermarket than it is at the winery with my inter-winery discount.
A blend of 80% Chenin blanc and 20% Viognier, the lovely floral-honeyed-citrusy-peach characteristics one would expect from these two grape varieties marry well in the bottle (and even better in my mouth, tee-hee).  A slight hint of residual sugar gives the wine a little bit of oomph in the body department and serves to lengthen a crisper than one would expect finish. The 2014 is a nice, very reasonably priced wine for summer.

Blue Plate Special.

Once upon a time, Chenin blanc was the most widely planted grape cultivar in California.  These days it's almost impossible to find a bottle of this appealing white wine which has it's origins in the Vouvray appellation in the Touraine district of the Loire.
Blue Plate Chenin blanc, is the creation of three wine-loving friends - Grant Hemingway, Jeff Anderson and Zach Bryant collectively plying their respective trades of viticulturist, marketer and winemaker as Picnic Wine Company - who source their grapes from a vineyard in the Clarksburg AVA which is located in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Featuring an original piece of artwork on the label, by artist Julia Zmed, Blue Plate's first vintage in 2010 was a blend of Chenin blanc, Sauvignon blanc and Chardonnay and retailed for a very reasonable $10.  The 2011, in my opinion is better than the first vintage, contains no Chardonnay (yay!), and retails for a still reasonable sum of $11.  Just 12 % alcohol (yay again!).  No oak. No ML. Plenty of drinkability with it's soft-peachy-fruitiness, this is a charming glass of wine.  

I think I may have found my new summer white.

No blush here.

At some point in Napa's winemaking history, Chenin blanc (CB) was the valley's most widely produced wine. Historical records show that Charles Krug produced a CB back in 1861, when he finally founded his own winery after making several vintages at John Patchett's winery.

I do love a nice CB, but don't get to drink it as often as I might like. Truth is, nowadays it's not that it's hard to find a good CB, it's hard to find one at all...that's why the most recent CB I had was from Washington State.

What struck me initially about this wine was the strong whiff of burnt matchstick (sulphur dioxide, perhaps) upon twisting open the screw cap, but this quickly dissipated. Whilst this wine was certainly no Vouvray, it was pleasant in it's own honey-citrus kind of way.

In full disclosure, I was given this wine by somebody who knows the lady on the label. Whilst her name, I'm assured, is actually Chenin, she doesn't happen to look very shy to me.

What's Lincoln doing in the drink?

One of the main reasons for Vinomaker wanting to make Chenin blanc this year was a challenge from a fellow winemaker to participate in a 2009 'ferment-off'. This winemaker had given us a bottle of his 2008 Chenin blanc to drink and also the contact information for the grower. We chilled the wine down. It seemed nice at first, well balanced acid, nice fruity esters and then, as it warmed up, bam! Cabbage!
My tasting descriptors tend to be of the first thing that comes to my mind and this time, like one of the veggies in a good Sunday roast, cabbage it was. Vinomaker got more bad eggs than cabbage, so he initially identified the problem as H2S, or more seriously methyl mercaptan. H2S produces smelly, odoriferous sulphur compounds that may have developed in the wine because of poor fermentation practices. Time for the old copper penny routine.
A United States one cent piece, pre-1982, is 95% copper...drop one into a stinky wine and The Great Emancipator frees the bonds of sulphurous servitude and undesirable compounds. The metal in the coin reacts with the H2S in the wine, converting it into insoluble copper sulphide. It is rather rapid chemistry and what it usually means is that the previously stinky wine is now drinkable.
However, that was not the end of this little malodorous matter, the wine had actually moved beyond that and the problem was one of the compound methyl mercaptan. Vinomaker, where are you?

Coals to Newcastle.

Harvest has begun in Vinoland. Earlier today Vinomaker and I picked our little crop of Pinot gris and Orange muscat, but that was after a brief road trip. Vinomaker, always anxious to try something new, had contracted to buy some Chenin blanc grapes and so at the crack of dawn we headed off into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to collect our fruit.

An extensive system of earthen levees, creating low lying tracts and islands separated by sloughs, have enabled wide-spread farming throughout the delta. Its peat soil makes it perhaps one of the most fertile agricultural areas in California, contributing billions of dollars to the states economy: That includes our donation of $1200 a ton for the Chenin blanc. We passed by expansive fields of tomatoes, sprawling pear orchards, swaths of golden feed corn, and vast sea-like plantings of alfalfa replete with marauding, rapacious great blue herons.

We drove through the delta towns of Rio Vista, Isleton, Ryde, Walnut Grove, and Locke (the term town is used loosely here), finally arriving at our destination: Courtland, elevation 5'...yes, it is extremely flat out there. The Chenin blanc had already been picked and we just had to load it up and take the berries back to Napa (apparently we have a shortage of grapes in Napa!)

Evidently everybody else in the delta was harvesting that morning too, and not just grapes. We were at one point delayed behind a couple of giant, dual-gondola trucks brimming over with tomatoes and cucumbers, which resembled a colossal mobile Greek salad (albeit sans feta.) At least it did to Vinogirl, who like the herons, had began to work up an appetite.

Returning to Vinoland there was just enough time for a quick cup of Earl Grey and a handful of Cadbury's Chocolate Animals before Vinomaker cracked the whip and the processing of the grapes began.

Happy harvest 2009 everyone!