Catherine Marshall, Chenin Blanc fermented in Clay, South Africa 2020. Wine and beer are to be enjoyed and before I started working in a wine merchants Chenin Blanc was not really on my list of go to grape varieties. When I’m drinking white wines, I normally head straight for a Reisling, but this blog is all about my wine journey and learning. So, todays post is all about one way to look beyond your comfort zone and try something from a producer who makes wine you like.
Catherine Marshall, Chenin Blanc fermented in Clay, South Africa 2020 at a glance
| Wine Style | Juicy and fruity |
| Food Pairing | Great with fish and shellfish |
| Grape Variety | Chenin Blanc |
| County of Origin | South Africa |
| Region | Elgin |
| Vintage | 2020 |
| Alcohol | 13.5% |
| Suitable for | Certified vegan friendly |
I have chosen one of my favourite producers, and this way I am pretty sure the wine is going to be well made and interesting and hopefully really enjoyable. Catherine Marshall is an extra-ordinary winemaker first produced wine in the Western Cape of South Africa in 1997. She now produces a variety of wines from a number of sites across Elgin and I am really enjoying trying out her wines like the Pinot Noir on Clay Soils she produces.
What is Chenin Blanc?
Chenin Blanc is a really versatile grape that can make the whole spectrum of wines from sparkling wines to bone-dry whites to sweet tropical fruit flavoured wines and dessert wines. The outstanding characteristic of any wine made from Chenin Blanc is plenty of refreshing acidity. Flavours range from crisp green apple through pear to ripe pineapple and honey. In France Chenin Blanc was traditionally grown along the Loire and is used to make the sparkling Crémant de Loire and Vouvray wines.
Acidity is present in all wines and is an important balance to natural sweetness and tannin and also contributes to the wines flavour. You can sometimes feel little prickles on your tongue or the production of lots of saliva which indicate high levels of acidity. Acidity in wine is often described using words like crisp, fresh, and bright.
Catherine Marshall, Chenin Blanc fermented in Clay, South Africa 2020
South Africa is now the major producer of Chenin Blanc with over fifty per cent of the planted vineyards worldwide. Indeed, Chenin Blanc is the powerhouse of South African wine. However, this is not a new trend over four thousand hectares are officially classified as over thirty-five years old. These vines are capable of producing delicious, complex wines with the potential to age. Many of the best South African producers are now using these vines to create beautiful wines.
Catherine Marshall has worked in vineyards in America, Australia, and France. Her first South African wine was a simple three barrels of Shiraz, crushed by foot. From the first commercial production in 1997 she now produces a range of wines from her Elgin base in the Western Cape. After pressing the grape juice is fermented in hand produced traditional clay amphorae.
This produces a fresh wine with hints of minerality like a traditional French Chablis. Some of this wine is then transferred to French oak barrels for a maturation period of nine months during which there is a partial malolactic fermentation. This is a wine making technique that changes one acid into another, making the wine taste smoother and can add a creamy quality. The process rounds out some of the crisp green apple notes adding notes of pear and ripe stone fruits. The two wines are then blended and filtered before being bottled.
My first impression was of aromas of pear, pineapple. On tasting there was both of these flavours with extra notes of juicy tangerines or clementines, and hints of ripe peaches and honey, all balanced with the refreshing acidity you would expect of Chenin Blanc. More experienced palates than mine describe this wines minerality, this is a difficult topic and hard to explain. The best I can come up with is flinty or a pleasing smell like wet gravel after fresh rainfall. This wine would be the perfect partner to mussels or other seafood or try with something with a kick of chilli.
The Caskaway 
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