I have fallen hard in love with Chenin Blanc over the last four months (Huet, Pinon, Foreau, A. Lambert, Thibaud Bougignon), though I’ll admit that I’ve limited it to Sec since a dry and highly acidic wine is my siren call. I’d like to explore sparkling CB and am curious as to what the wine hive has to say. I’ve seen vintage, NV, Brut, Petillant. What does it mean? What do you love? Who do you love? Do you age it? Is it similar to Champagne methods of production and blending (for NV)? Is vintage only made in the best years? Can you rely on a beloved producer of the still wine to also make an excellent sparkler?
Thank you for your wisdom.
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Hi Chris,
I’ve been increasingly interested in chenin blanc over the years. Sorry, I’ve only had a few sparking chenins (mostly Foreau) so can’t answer your question. But you might try Guiberteau and Michel Autran non-sparkling chenin blancs, in addition to your impressive list, if you get the chance.
Cheers,
Hal
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Hey Chris- I don’t know much about sparkling Chenin, never had the good stuff from Huet/Foreau/Chidaine/whomever, all the cheaper ones I’ve tried have fallen into the “good not great” category.
But, for still Chenin, a few more producers you might look at: Baudry, Olga Raffault, Clement Baraut, Nicolas Joly, Domaine aux Moines, Les Vignes Herbel, Domaine du Closel.
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I enjoy Huet but not in every vintage. Foreau isn’t common but has been the best quality sparkler when I have encountered it. Chidaine’s bubbles are reliable and fairly priced. I also recommend Jacky Blot which is in good distribution. One last recommendation is Les Rocher des Violettes.
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Craig Haarmeyer in California makes a Chenin pet-nat.
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I really haven’t fallen in love with bubbly Chenin. Like Jonathan said, they tend to be “good not great”. I do enjoy them whenever I get the chance, but I don’t seek them out.
I love Chenin when it is lean, austere and mineral white wine, because that is what it excels in. After all, the grape variety is known to be not flashy, but instead quite neutral in a positive way.
However, I like my sparkling wines with some character and Chenin made into a sparkling wine tends to show very little in that department. The wines can have lovely freshness and minerality, but they don’t seem to develop much toasty autolytic qualities, just subtle creamy tones even with extended aging sur lattes. Nor do the wines seem to develop much complexity with age - I’ve had some older vintages (1998, 1990, 1989) that I would have expected to show some tertiary nuttiness, toasty characteristics or other complexity, but the wines were still pretty lean, linear and mineral without much depth. Slightly woolly, if anything. Enjoyable, but nothing particularly memorable.
So a young Vouvray Brut can be a nice little inexpensive sparkling wine to raise your glasses to, but I really haven’t seen them offer the same kind of pleasure as, say, higher-quality and/or aged Champagne, top-tier Cava or good Franciacorta.
Oh, and that pétillant, it just means lower pressure i.e. softer carbonation than a Mousseux/Méthode Traditionelle sparkling wine. They both can be Brut (dry), Brut Tendre / Sec (off-dry), Demi-Sec (medium-dry) or Moelleux (sweet). Then there are also Methode Ancestrale / pét-nat wines that are made only with a single fermentation and can range from anything to sweet, slightly fizzy and cloudy to bone-dry, aggressively bubbly and crystal-clear.
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As usual, I agree with Otto. I used to drink quite a lot of sparkling Loire Chenins, as a cheap alternative to champagne. They’re fresh and lemony with interesting touches of apple and pear, but not terribly complex.
But for me the real problem is the price.
A wine like Jacky Blot’s Triple Zéro (the triple refers to the fact that the wine is neither chaptalized nor dosed, nor does it have any liqueur de tirage added) used to cost me 7 or 8 euros. Now it costs 20€.
For that money I can get a champagne offering precisely those nutty, toasty characteristics that Otto mentions - with at least two euros change, so I stopped buying Loire sparklers.
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I had (again) an excellent Vouvray Foreau Réserve 2002 last saturday …
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I would call myself a Chenin Blanc liker rather than a Chenin Blanc lover. I drink much more German Riesling and white Burgundy than I do Loire whites.
When I drink Loire Chenin, I tend to drink what I like best and, while I have tasted very good sparkling Chenin Blanc, I like the still ones better. I am pretty agnostic between sec and demi-sec. As I age the wines a good bit, they both get fairly dry and I find the biggest difference to be an increased focus in the sec wines and an increase in richness with the demi-sec wines.
I view the sweeter wines a bit different. For me, they don’t compete with the sec and demi-sec wines for usage but rather with sweeter German wines and Sauternes.
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My favorites are the Huet and Pinon sparklers
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Yep, and its REALLY good, and very fairly priced. If you like dry, high-acid chenin, you will love all of his offerings (including the sparkling).
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I’ve had the Huet Petillant a few times. It’s a tasty wine, but on the simple and straightforward side. I don’t think you’d compare it to Champagne really.
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I’d add the previously mentioned Foreau and Jacky Blot. I like Foreau and Pinon best and drink them most often. I don’t see them as Champagne replacements but rather a different type of wine experience. More apéro than how we use Champagne. I like the lower bar and softness of the mouthfeel as well as the different flavor profile of Chenin.
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I’m a fan of sparkling Chenin done well. I think Jacky Blot’s Triple Zero at 20€ is a no brainer.
I’m not sure about the comments on aging above. Chenin grown on limestone as in the Montlouis and Vouvray examples above tends to make a slow-developing brew historically. They take longer to develop secondary and tertiary notes IME than Champagne.
Huet ‘64 Petillant at 40-50 years was very special and indelibly etched in my tasting memory. Very complex with the bottle richness of an aged Champagne. I have the ‘95 Huet and Foreau going in the cellar for a 40-year side by side in about 15 years.
I’m very happy with Pinon’s sparklers, which for me have a lot more interest and character than lower end champagne (and that’s a lot more expensive than the Vouvray Brut).
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Agree, especially the '09 Huet Reserve-outstanding and a real eye opener on what sparkling CB can achieve.
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I love dry Chenin.
I’ve tried some sparkling Chenins; like Marshall, I used to drink them as a value play. Like Otto, I generally find them “good, not great.”
Get into grower Champagne. Look for Extra Brut and No dosage examples. Some Brut will be up your alley, too. They’re exactly what you’re looking for, and are way better than sparkling Chenin.
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Yeah…reference only to a thread of someone needing to be convinced to like CB. So I was proactively weeding out the haters.
Another vote for Pinon. At the low- to mid-$20s, this is one of the best QPRs on sparkling wine if you like Chenin Blanc. Huet also well worth the money, though I tend to think of those as akin to vintage Champagne.
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