Wine Enthusiast: How Chenin Became the Cool Kid's Grape

My husband was delighted to read this article in the Wine Enthusiast called "How Chenin Became the Cool Kid's Grape".
Where Chenin is grown:

• The Central Loire Valley of France: For over 500 years Chenin Blanc has been cultivated in famed appellations like Vouvray, Anjou, Saumur and Savennières
• South Africa: historically known as “Steen”, the first cuttings were planted near Cape Town in 1655 by members of the Dutch East India Company, comprising 18% of South Africa’s vine plantings, it grows across the western part of the country, from Stellenbosch and Paarl to Swartland
• Western Australia: In Swan Valley, Chenin is turned into fortified wines, half the plantings are in Western Australia, but can also be found in Margaret River, Victoria and South Australia,
• California: Chenin reached peak levels during the 1970s and 80s.
• Long Island, New York: Paumanok Vineyards
• Connecticut: Passionfruit Estate

The last two entries above, Long Island has been known for their excellent Chenin Blanc and we, in Connecticut hope to make wine drinkers in our area familiar with our Chenin Blanc.
Why Chenin has seen a resurgence in popularity:

• Introduction of biodynamic farming of Chenin by Nicholas Joly in Savennières
• Promotion of "natural wine" and minimal intervention wine by Alice Fiering
• Praise by top sommeliers including Pascaline Lepeltier, Alex Alan at Hotel Delmano
• Early U.S. importers like Louis/Dressner, Jenny & François, Polaner, Camille Riviere and Avant-Garde

We also make our wines with as minimal intervention as possible, using Chenin Blanc grown at our vineyard and yeast to ferment the juice. Nothing is added but yeast during the fermentation. The wine sits on lees, to gain richness and mouthfeel. Prior to the bottling process we add less than 50 ppm sulfites (legal limit 300 ppm) and filter.
So, be the cool kid in your area and come to Passionfruit Estate to purchase our Chenin Blanc! We are open on Fridays from 3-6, Saturday and Sunday from noon-4. We are located at 40 Taugwonk Spur Rd Unit 31. When we are open, our signs can be found on the corner of North Main Street and Route 1, North Main Street and Taugwonk, Taugwonk and Taugwonk Spur. If you've come this far, you've found us! Hope to see you soon!
Reference:
1. Wine Enthusiast: How Chenin Became the Cool Kid's Grape.

2021 LAN Rioja Crianza

The 2021 LAN Rioja Crianza is one of our goto red wines in the summertime. Not only does it pair well with summertime dishes, but it is very affordable.
On this night, we paired this Rioja Crianza with deboned, chicken thighs marinated in teriyaki and grilled. The side dish was a typical Hawaiian noodle dish that was elevated by the Haleiwa Sun Noodle Company mein that our daughter sent us.
The Bodegas LAN was founded in 1974 and the name is taken from the initials of the three provinces of Lagrono, Allava, and Navarra that lie in the heart of the Rioja Alta.¹ This wine is made from 94% Tempranillo and 6% Mazuelo.
María Barua has been the head winemaker and technical director since 2002. Fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks, 15 days maceration, with continuous pumping-over to optimize color extraction. It is then aged for 14 months in hybrid oak barrels, followed by 9 months bottle ageing.
The wine was very pleasant with bright red fruit notes of strawberries and raspberries with a soft tannin finish that paired very well with the teriyaki chicken and noodles.

References:
1. LAN Rioja.

Vintage 2025: July Weather

We have had a very wet spring, you know the old saying, "April showers bring May flowers", well this year, April showers brought May showers, June showers and now July showers! A farmer's best friend is the weather app and here is what it showed for the previous week from July 7-14 and for this week, July 14-21. Rain! Rain! Rain!

Rain brings a number of things in the vineyard such as out-of-control growth, weeds, and most of all mildew. Our friends and our granddaughter have been coming to the vineyard at 6 a.m. to help with the July duties which include shoot tucking, lateral shoot removal and hedging. Some parts of our vineyard looks like this, where a lot of work has already been done:

But some parts of the vineyard looks like this where a lot of work still needs to be done.

This is the state of the vineyard in July!

2019 Santenay Antoine Olivier Les Coteaux sous la Roche

July is hot, humid and rainy! No one in this family feels like cooking in this kind of weather, but we can still drink. A few evenings ago, we had this Antoine Olivier, 2019 Santenay Les Coteaux sous la Roche. It is a Chardonnay. We paired it with toast points with olive tenpanade and eggplant spread from Mount Vikos. We also had Saint Andre cheese. The spreads and cheese went very well with the Chardonnay which was medium body, with a slightly reductive nose which blew off upon swirling. The wine tasted like lemon drop candy with a lively acidic finish.
The Product Information Sheet for this wine that I found online mentioned the following:
The grapes come from a single vineyard ‘Coteaux Sous la Roche’, which translates as ‘under the rocks’. For the winemaking process, the grapes were gently pressed and then racked to barrel where fermentation took place using natural yeasts. The wine was kept on its fine lees and underwent bâtonnage to impart texture and complexity to the wine. Malolactic conversion took place in barrel. The wine was 100% barrel aged for 12 months, in traditional Burgundian barrels of 228 litre barrels, of which 25% were new oak. The wine was then transferred to tank where it spent a further six months, prior to being lightly fined, filtered and estate bottled.

Vintage 2025: It's July!

Time marches on. It's July! We have fruiset in the vineyard. Somehow between the extreme heat and the rains the vines managed to set their fruit. We were working between the Cabernet Franc and the Barbera and this is what fruitset there looks like:

After a hot and humid day in the vineyard, it is raining again tonight!