This chenin blanc from the Hunter valley not only challenges preconceptions about what the Hunter can achieve – it also shows a new facet of chenin blanc as an endlessly fascinating variety.
This wine shows chenin blanc in an especially ripe – yet paradoxically not especially fruit-forward – frame. It’s not aromatically exuberant, giving relatively subdued notes of white nectarine, green apple, lemon zest, and yuzu flesh that later come through more strongly on the palate, with a subtle hint of brioche dough emerging from its use of bâtonnage. On the palate, the reward of that lees work becomes clear – this is a wine built more for silky, unctuous texture than it is for mere fruitiness. That silkiness is wrapped around a core of strict minerality, with a lovely saline note becoming clear on the tip of the tongue as the wine moves down the palate, driven by racy acidity. There’s plenty of weight and texture here, but you wouldn’t call it opulent or soft – more like a Sumo wrestler, with serious muscle underneath the cushioning. A fascinating example of the flexibility and intrigue offered by chenin blanc, no matter where it’s grown.
Chenin blanc is responsible for some of the longest-lived whites in the world, largely from its spiritual home in the Loire Valley. While it has been very much a bit player in Australia over the years, a renewed interest is seeing exciting expressions of chenin entering the market. It’s hard to generalise about the flavours of chenin blanc, such is the variety of expressions that are made from it, with some crisp and dry and others exotically flavoured and quite sweet. At the cooler end, flavours like green pear and lemon are common, developing into lemon curd, honeysuckle, honey, straw, cooked pear and quince the riper it gets, then botrytis can often step in with layers of toast and citrus curd and more exotic florals. The one thing that is a constant with chenin is the acidity, with the wines being typically racy and fresh even with some residual sugar.
The Hunter Valley is Australia’s oldest wine region, shading Western Australia’s Swan Valley by a bit less than a decade. Those first plantings were somewhat furtive, with 8 hectares in the ground by 1823 on the banks of the Hunter River in what is now the Dalwood/Gresford area, between Maitland and Singleton. Its role as the country’s first wine region means it has also been a nexus of Australian wine industry power – for both good (see Maurice O’Shea’s visionary winemaking work, which went on to define much of how we drink today) and ill (see the dilution of Hunter Valley character and quality as wine brands such as Lindeman’s, Rosemount and Wyndham Estate became monoliths untethered from their regional origins). Having been an unintentional casualty of the corporatisation and decline of Australian wine megabrands, though, the Hunter is now going through a renaissance, with a cohort of exciting young producers redefining what this region is capable of, and Australian winedrinkers rediscovering the virtues of aged Hunter semillon and mid-weight, spicy Hunter shiraz.
Bâtonnage (to give it its proper French accent) is the process of stirring lees, the dead yeast cells that remain from fermentation, while a wine is maturing in barrel or tank. Why? Well, when those lees break down they will help to add nutty or savoury flavour and rich texture to the wine, softening some of the hard edges. It can also be used if a wine becomes a little stinky/reductive, by introducing oxygen, and it is also sometimes used to reduce the buttery flavour in chardonnay that can be produced from malolactic fermentation.
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