Article: TASTE OF WINE; CHENIN BLANC GETS NO RESPECT AT ALL

WE'LL SAY IT AGAIN: Chenin blanc is the Rodney Dangerfield of white-wine grapes. No respect, no respect at all.

At least, that's the case in the United States, where California conglomerates for decades have produced thin, insipid, slightly sweet wines that gave chenin a bad name.

In France, though, chenin blanc enjoys a Jerry Lewis-like adulation. It is there, in the Loire Valley west and southwest of Paris, where the grape reaches its heights, in the vineyards of Vouvray and Montluis and Savennieres. Wines from those regions taste nothing like their industrial-produced California counterparts: they can be dry and steely and packed with an essence-of-lime flavor that can turn the head of ...

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