Author: Paul Montague, Up Close and Local ToursWe’re calling it - Chenin is the new Chardonnay in the Swan Valley. Why are we telling you this? Because the Chenin capital of Australia is right on your doorstep and if it’s not on your radar, then it should be.
And it may also be time for you to do a wine tour with Up Close and Local Tours to rediscover the Swan Valley wine region!
If you’ve visited a winery or two, you’ve probably heard or read that wine grapes ripen through summer and are harvested at the end of summer through to early autumn. However, the Swan Valley climate doesn’t quite play by those rules! For the 2020 vintage, due to warm weather in Spring, harvest began in the Swan Valley on the 3rd of January. That’s all of about 5 weeks into our West Australian summer.
Chardonnay may be an adaptable grape, but it doesn’t love quite this much sun and heat. Because of the summers getting warmer and longer, Chardonnay may not make it through today’s Swan Valley summer like it may have done once upon a time, so in recent times winemakers have planted less, or grafted it over to more suitable varietals (read on!).
In saying this, it’s important to note that there are some Swan Valley wineries that, with careful vineyard management, do make a quality Chardonnay from their estate grown grapes. And we are very happy to drink it. However, the majority that is still grown in this region is picked early, when it is nice and high in acid, and then used for sparkling wine production.
This means there isn’t as much Swan Valley Chardonnay around, and with small production it’s even more rare to find any that has a few years of age on it, which is how we like to drink it. So, we’re going to tell you why you’re going to love Chenin.
This is why you need to try Swan Valley Chenin
Rich, full bodied, textural, layered. And no, I’m not talking about Chardonnay. Do you see where we are going here?
If these descriptions get your mouth watering for a glass of Chardy, you’re going to love Chenin Blanc because it ticks a lot of those same boxes.
The Swan Valley is actually the Chenin Blanc capital of Australia and it flourishes here - perfectly suited to the climate, geography and soil (aka ‘terroir’). And with Australia being a ‘new world’ wine country, it means we don’t have the same rules that dictate wine production like it does in the Loire Valley, the spiritual home of Chenin, so the Swan Valley winemakers have a lot of freedom to be expressive and put their trademark style on the variety.
Chenin Blanc is one of those varieties that can really showcase ‘winemaking’. One Chenin can be completely different from another, even when they’re made by the same winemaker from the same grapes - Chenin is an excellent example of why we love wine tasting in the Swan Valley!
And of course Chenin isn’t just for Chardonnay drinkers. A young Chenin is bright and crisp, and can even be made into a sparkling like Sittella’s Sparkling Chenin which is one of the top selling sparkling wines in WA and features in Tyson Stelzer’s ‘Hall of Fame’. Not bad for a small family winery 30 minutes from Perth.
Bottle aged Chenin - this is getting serious
I always get excited when we have Chardonnay drinkers on our Swan Valley wine tours, especially if they are partial to an oaked Chardy. The reason I get excited is because I get to introduce them to Chenin - and in particular my favourite version, bottle aged Chenin.
The one big difference between Chenin and Chardonnay in terms of winemaking is that, generally speaking, oak isn’t usually used to make Chenin but the high acidity makes it perfect for ageing. After 6 or 7 years it develops an amazing toasty character and spice that is reminiscent of drinking a Chardonnay that has seen some oak.
One particular wine that is often ‘wine of the day’ on our wine tours is the John Kosovich Wines bottle aged Chenin, which is generally released after about 6 years in bottle. Their current 2013 release was awarded a trophy at the 2018 Singapore Airlines Swan Valley Wine Show for what they consider to be a wine that best identifies with the Swan Valley. Which makes sense given the Swan Valley is the capital of Chenin, after all.
To follow that up, the John Kosovich 2014 Bottle Aged Chenin Blanc won the prestigious Singapore Airlines Premium Trophy for Best Table Wine of Show in 2019 - safe to say we are eagerly awaiting the release of that one! And at $36 a pop it’s a steal for a wine that has been carefully cellared for 6 years.
If we’ve whet your appetite for Swan Valley Chenin, check out these tasting notes from Erin Larkin. In addition to Erin’s list, great examples of aged whites are also regularly released at Faber Vineyard (but you have to be fast, they get snapped up quickly) and Olive Farm Wines, with their new ‘Frank the Tank’ giving them the opportunity to open aged wines for tasting. If you haven’t met Frank, then you’re missing out.
So, if Chenin is so great why haven’t you heard more about it?
Marketing is something we talk about a bit on our tours. Just because you haven’t heard much about it (yet) doesn’t mean you aren’t already drinking it. Like all products, sometimes wines are expressed in different ways to suit a market or a trend.
Australia is ‘young’ in terms of winemaking as well as wine drinking, and there was a time when people didn’t know (or possibly care) what varieties such as Chenin or Verdelho or even a Semillon were. They were in fact drinking these in the form of ‘Classic Whites’, ‘Field Blends’ and ‘Dry Whites’. You’d have to be living under a rock to not know of Houghton’s Classic White - this is the famous Chenin blend that, thanks to Jack Mann, put the Swan Valley on the wine map and West Australians LOVED it (and still do). But who knew it was Chenin?
There is also a misconception that because a wine or varietal features heavily in a large bottleshop that it must be ‘better’, when in fact most of the wineries in the Swan Valley produce on such a small scale that they simply couldn’t supply enough stock even if they wanted to. This is why you rarely see these wines outside the cellar door.
But that is in fact the beauty of a Swan Valley wine - you’re not buying it off the shelf with a bit of pot luck and choosing the ‘most appealing label’, you get to go right to the cellar door to taste before you buy. Because of this, the wineries get to make wines that they are passionate about and do what they do best, knowing that at the end of the day, taste will be the true test.
So for Drink Chenin day on June 20, do you need any more excuses to go get a Swan Valley Chenin to fill your glass?
Paul Montague runs Up Close and Local Tours, specialising in boutique wine and food tours in the Swan Valley wine region. A passionate local winelover, he has spent years working alongside some of the best wineries in the region to create personalised and exclusive wine experiences for his guests. Isn’t it about time you rediscovered the Western Australia’s oldest wine region?
Photo credits: Kate Johnson Photography