Second epoch; hangs long into autumn for the sweet pickings
Leaf
Medium, orbicular, five-lobed, bullate; deep green
Bunch
Medium, conical, winged, compact
Berry
Medium, ovoid, green-gold turning amber; thin skin, prone to botrytis
Few grapes have deeper roots along a single river. Chenin Blanc — an offspring of Savagnin — has been on the Loire at least since the ninth century, when records of the abbey of Glanfeuil in Anjou mention its vines; Rabelais names it in the sixteenth. Its signature is an electric acidity that time cannot dull.
That acidity lets one grape run the whole register: bone-dry Savennières, honeyed demi-sec, the botrytized moelleux of Vouvray and the Layon, and sparkling fines bulles — quince, honey and chamomile threading through all of them. It reached the Cape of Good Hope with the Dutch in 1655 under the name Steen, and South Africa, not France, is today the variety's largest home.
In the blend
Share of this grape in a typical blend of each wine