Chenin blanc

Chenin blanc is the most versatile white grape in the world. From one variety, in one region, the Loire makes bone dry still wine, off-dry wine, botrytis dessert wine and traditional-method sparkling wine, and all four are taken seriously. Very few grapes can do even two of those well.

The reason is acidity that stays high even at full ripeness, combined with a thin skin that lets noble rot take hold cleanly. High acid makes dry chenin taut and long-lived, balances a sweet wine so it finishes clean, and gives a sparkling base its structure. The flavour runs from green apple and quince when young to honey, beeswax, chamomile and wet wool with age. A good dry Vouvray at twenty years old is one of the more surprising things in wine.

Vouvray, Savennières and Montlouis are the Loire references; Coteaux du Layon and Quarts de Chaume are the sweet ones. South Africa has more chenin planted than France does, where it is called steen, much of it old dry-farmed bush vine in Swartland and Paarl that was originally grown for brandy and is now the source of the country's best whites.