By Mike Dunne
A little more than a decade ago, the Sacramento chapter of Slow Food lobbied to get the green grape Chenin Blanc grown at Clarksburg added to the Ark of Taste, Slow Food’s ambitious catalog of foods and beverages threatened with extinction.
Other California provisions are on the Ark, such as the Santa Maria pinquito bean, the Bodega red potato and the Burbank tomato, but not a single wine grape.
Nonetheless, the group’s efforts stalled. Now may be the time to revive them, though Chenin Blanc from the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta is less threatened today than it was a decade ago. Indeed, it is seeing something of a resurgence in popularity and esteem.
The cultivation of Chenin Blanc in the Delta has increased over the past decade, though not by much. Because the Delta sprawls across portions of five counties, statistics of specific grape varieties within the region are difficult to track. But that said, farmland devoted to Chenin Blanc in the four counties immediately about Clarksburg has risen from 1,554 acres a decade ago to 1,684 acres today.
This has happened even though much of the Delta’s vineyard land has been given over to the reigning queen of California’s wine trade, Chardonnay; even though Chenin Blanc remains something of an unknown quantity to wine consumers; and even though vineyards throughout the state are being yanked out in the wake of a stubbornly persistent slip in wine sales.
So why is Chenin Blanc from Clarksburg such a bright spot in California’s otherwise cloudy wine culture?
Winemakers and consumers alike are discovering that Chenin Blanc grown at Clarksburg produces a wine exceptionally refreshing, lively, versatile, easy to drink, and expressive in both its inherent fruitiness and in its transparency about where it is grown.
The Delta is a swampy and sunny land whose combination of rich sandy clay loam soils and cool breezes yields a Chenin Blanc vibrant with radiant fruit, gently caressing texture, and enough zingy acidity to make it an unusually amiable companion at the table. It rarely is made into a blockbuster style of wine, but one that wins over consumers for its playful and rangy nuances. For grower and drinker alike, it is a rare grape that delivers both generous crops and generous flavors, often at an appealing price.
In the long agrarian history of Clarksburg, Courtland, Walnut Grove, Rio Vista, Hood and other small towns of the Delta, Chenin Blanc is a new star. Wine grapes have been cultivated in the Delta since the 1850s, but over the past 170 years their contribution to the region’s standing for exceptional crops has trailed the allure of sugar beets, asparagus, cucumbers, potatoes, lettuce, wheat, corn, and pears, among others.
Chenin Blanc only began its rise to prominence in the Delta in 1960, when farmers Paul Baranek and Joe Herzog planted 27 varieties of wine grapes in an experimental plot a few miles east of Courtland. Encouraged by early results, they followed up three years later with the first modern commercial vineyard in the area, and by 1982 the Herzog Co. was overseeing 600 acres of wine grapes, many of them given over to Chenin Blanc, but also including French Colombard, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grey Riesling, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Chardonnay and Merlot.
Winemakers from throughout the North State who made their way to the Delta in search of grapes were especially taken with the quality of their Chenin Blanc, appreciating both the grape’s abundant output and the spunk of the resulting wines. High-profile players to capitalize on Clarksburg Chenin Blanc starting in the 1970s included Christian Brothers, Kendall-Jackson, Sebastiani and Gallo, though neither Chenin Blanc nor Clarksburg generally made it onto the labels of their wines, frequently marketed as “Chablis” or some other fanciful name, with a “California” appellation.
Quick to follow up on the success of Paul Baranek and Joe Herzog with Chenin Blanc were Warren Bogle and his son Chris, whose family had been farming the Delta since the 1870s, but cherries, peaches, and pears, not grapes. That changed in 1968 when the Bogles put in 20 acres of wine grapes, half Petite Sirah, half Chenin Blanc. Both were well received, especially after the Bogles established their own winery a decade later. Today’s Bogle Family Wine Collection is the nation’s 13th largest winery, producing more than two million cases of wine annually. Though the Bogles are recognized today more for Petite Sirah than Chenin Blanc, numerous other vintners have latched onto Chenin Blanc from the Delta to make their own profound statements about the frisky, resonating white wine it yields.
Wide respect for Clarksburg-area Chenin Blanc began to develop in earnest in the early 1980s. In one year alone – 1981 - Chenin Blancs made with Delta grapes won 17 medals at four major wine competitions. For seven straight years early this century, the Dry Creek Vineyard Clarksburg Dry Chenin Blanc placed in the top 10 wines at the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition, a judging that customarily drew around 200 wines thought to pair splendidly with raw oysters.
Since then, Chenin Blanc has been coasting leisurely through the nation’s wine scene, like one of those lumbering houseboats rolling about the Delta’s sloughs – appreciated for its homey comfort, not making many waves, taken for granted.
Over the past few vintages, however, Clarksburg Chenin Blanc has been rediscovered by a youthful and adventurous wing of California winemakers. As a measure of Chenin Blanc’s growing presence on the California wine scene, at least in Sacramento, the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op lately has stocked four Chenin Blancs from Clarksburg, while Corti Brothers has offered six.
Boutique brands like Haarmeyer Cellars, Maître de Chai, Matt Crutchfield, Leo Steen, Heringer, Kareen, Margins, Dash, Wade and Silt are among those whose winemakers see in under-rated Chenin Blanc an opportunity to sculpt a wine that appeals to consumers for its freshness, crispness, adaptability and clear representation of the special place where the grapes were grown.
That’s Clarksburg, which even if its Chenin Blanc isn’t taken aboard the Ark of Taste looks well poised to present a growing audience with a take on the variety notable for its character, quality, and value.
(Mike Dunne, of Sacramento, is the author of “The Signature Wines of Superior California: 50 Wines that Define the Sierra Foothills, the Delta, Yolo and Lodi.” Two of the 50 wines are Chenin Blanc from Clarksburg.). His book is available many places, including Corti Brothers.