{"id":6603,"date":"2008-07-21T01:07:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-21T01:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/thinking-of-dinner-draws-a-blanc\/"},"modified":"2008-07-21T01:07:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-21T01:07:00","slug":"thinking-of-dinner-draws-a-blanc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2008\/07\/thinking-of-dinner-draws-a-blanc\/","title":{"rendered":"THINKING OF DINNER DRAWS A BLANC"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Wc21Jul08<\/p>\n

YOUR FREE WEEKLY WINE COLUMN for w\/b July 21 2008
\u00a0<\/p>\n

wine with david ellis<\/p>\n

WINEMAKER Brian Light at McLaren Vale’s Dowie Doole believes the most under-utilised and under-estimated variety at the ultra-premium end of the Australian wine industry is Chenin Blanc.<\/p>\n

He points out that In France’s Loire Valley, the variety has traditionally been used to produce incredibly long-living sweet white wines and excellent dry whites, because the French limit yields to just six or seven tonnes per hectare.<\/p>\n

“But with enough water Chenin Blanc can yield up to four times this to the hectare \u2013 a temptation for growers here to look for tonnes of fruit rather than tonnes of fruit flavour,” he says. “By simply using Chenin’s naturally high acidity as a low-cost way of balancing residual sweetness for easy-drinking, middle-of-the-road and slightly sweet whites, they’re doing nothing to enhance the variety’s reputation.”<\/p>\n

Determined to do something about it, Brian’s created a 2006 Dowie Doole Tintookie Chenin Blanc from 70-year old, low-yielding vines on Drew Dowie’s and Lulu Lunn’s Tintookie Vineyard. “These vines struggle a bit in the sandy, quite infertile soils, but deliver plenty of the variety’s green pear and white peach flavours, and we pick early to retain freshness and tingling acidity.”<\/p>\n

A lovely wine at $32 with loads of cellaring potential (six or eight years at least, Brian says.) With those green pear and white peach flavours, a hint of nuttiness and already a nice creaminess coming through, serve it with poached salmon topped with buerre blanc \u2013 Chenin Blanc and buerre blanc are, after all, partner specialties of the Loire Valley.<\/p>\n

BUY OF THE WEEK: LOGAN Wines in NSW’s cold-climate central west have released their 2006 premium Logan Vintage ‘M’ Cuvee, a full-on-flavour sparkling from Peter Logan who used late-picked Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier to create an exceptional light-salmon coloured fizz that’s spot-on as a special-occasion aperitif. Pay $35, pop the cork and start partying.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Need a drink? We’re archived on http:\/\/vintnews.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n

PHOTO CAPTIONS:<\/p>\n

. FRENCH connection: showcasing just how good Chenin Blanc can be.<\/p>\n

. POP the cork and start partying with this exceptional fizz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wc21Jul08 YOUR FREE WEEKLY WINE COLUMN for w\/b July 21 2008\u00a0 wine with david ellis WINEMAKER Brian Light at McLaren Vale’s Dowie Doole believes the most under-utilised and under-estimated variety at the ultra-premium end of the Australian wine industry is Chenin Blanc. He points out that In France’s Loire Valley, the variety has traditionally been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}