Once upon a time in a land not so far away and a time not so long ago, back when I first started out in natural wine, one of the grapes that I was first introduced to was Chenin Blanc.
I was not a Sauvignon Blanc drinker, and so my palate gravitated to Chenin. I was especially fascinated with the wine I was drinking, and years later, I realized I was more fascinated with that particular producer and not the grape per se. And as I have come to know over the years, not all Chenin is created equal.
Chenin Blanc originated in the Anjou region of France, possibly as far back as the 9th century, to which I will take back the "not so long ago."
Records from the Abbey of Glanfeuil may contain one of the earliest traces of the grape, describing vines growing on the left bank of the Loire in vineyards belonging to individuals named Soulangé and Bessé. Whether those vines were actually the Chenin Blanc we know today isn't certain, but this is where the trail begins.
Several hundred years later.
On January 3, 1496, a guy named Thomas Bohier purchased vineyard land around Chenonceaux. This was around the same period when Christopher Columbus was busy "discovering" a New World that already had people living in it. Just to put the timeline in perspective to make sure you are still with me.
Plant d'Anjou, the grape associated with what we now know as Chenin Blanc, would eventually make its way from Anjou toward Touraine and Mont Chenin, from which the name Chenin is believed to have come.
DNA testing has since shown that Chenin Blanc is an offspring of Savagnin (my personal favorite white from Jura) and a half-sibling to Trousseau and Sauvignon Blanc.
French writer François Rabelais wrote glowingly about the white wines of Anjou and even mentioned the medicinal qualities of Chenin grapes in Gargantua.
These grapes were praised for their healing powers.
And I am starting to think that the people of France have a wine-healing power problem. Ever noticed how so many popular grapes, a long time ago, were used to "heal"?
1655
The Dutch East India Company sent vine cuttings across an ocean to a man named Jan van Riebeeck. Chenin Blanc is believed to have been among them.
Van Riebeeck wasn't a winemaker. He had joined the Dutch East India Company as an assistant ship's surgeon, and he was sent to the Cape as a colonial administrator, tasked with establishing a resupply station for company trading ships.
The vines traveled as cargo to South Africa, and they arrived inside the same colonial operation that, within a few years, brought enslaved people to the Cape and pushed the region into open conflict with the Khoikhoi people who already lived there.
The grape doesn't get to have a story without this part of it.
And it enhances your next glass of Chenin.
When the first Cape wine was pressed on February 2, 1659, early records tell us that several varieties were already growing at the Cape.
Among the names that would appear in those early records was one that would eventually become very important:
Steen.
What in the Hell, Steen?
Two years ago, I was having a conversation with a wine producer from Portugal, and he told me something that you would probably only hear from a producer from Portugal.
He said the farmers were the ones who actually named the grapes. Because there were so many different varieties growing across Portugal, and because many farmers back then didn't have formal education, you could find what appeared to be the same grape in the south sounding similar to what it was called in the north, but spelled very differently.
I imagine this could be a similar scenario here, naming some grape that arrived as cargo, something that was familiar to them. By the way, I don't know if this is what happened, but I like my version better.
The name Steen is a classic historical puzzle itself. People have speculated, and one of the theories connects it to the Dutch word steendruif, meaning "stone grape." Exactly where the name came from remains uncertain.
For centuries, Steen was Steen.
And while its French identity remained unconfirmed, it became deeply South African.
Bush vines.
Brandy.
Bulk wine.
Eventually some of the most exciting dry white wines in the country.
Then, in 1963, Professor C.J. Orffer, head of viticulture at Stellenbosch University, compared South African Steen with Chenin Blanc material from the Loire.
The leaves matched.
Steen was Chenin
Three hundred years later, Chenin was basically standing there in South Africa like:
Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is.....
And to be fair, Steen didn't disappear overnight.
The name remained in use for decades, and some South African producers still deliberately use Steen today.
And by right.
I think it's something worth holding onto. Too quickly we rush to erase history when it's the shoulders we stand on today.
And Then This Happened
Chenin is planted all over the world today. It makes some great pét-nat and pairs beautifully with oysters.
South Africa is now the largest grower of Chenin Blanc on Earth, with substantially more Chenin planted than France.
And some of its oldest vines, vines that spent generations growing under the name Steen, preserved something else along the way.
Genetic diversity.
South Africa's Old Vine Project and Vititec began collecting and preserving material from old vineyards. According to the Old Vine Project, South Africa possessed Chenin selections that had disappeared from France.
Interloire (the Loire Valley's regional wine trade body) took selected South African Chenin material back to France. They wanted to safeguard that genetic material in a clonal garden.
That's so France!
The grape that traveled to the Cape inside a ship, as part of a colonial outpost, is now being asked to come home carrying something the place of its birth had lost.
The grape that left France centuries ago is now making the journey back.
Not as the same grape that left.
It carries South Africa with it.
That is not an irony.
That is the whole point.
Every Bottle Has a Journey
A grape can migrate.
It can lose its name.
It can acquire another one.
It can spend centuries adapting to another place until that place becomes part of its identity.
And then one day it can go home carrying something its birthplace no longer has.
A bottle carries every hand that touches its journey, even the ones history forgot.
Every bottle is a passport.
This one just happens to have a lot of stamps in it, some celebrated, some history conveniently leaves off the label and the table.