From: Maharashtra, India
Varietal: Chenin Blanc
Taste: It may surprise you, but this Chenin Blanc from India is exceedingly friendly, with tropical & stone fruit flavors all tied together neatly by a hint of saffron and ready to party alongside year-round fare.
Pairing: Dal-Chawal and Chenin Blanc! Rice dishes really vary greatly in flavor in Indian cuisine, so this may be one of the more difficult Indian food and wine pairings to discuss. So, to make things easier, we're going to talk about two major categories of rice dishes — comfort food-style dishes and earthy, smoky dishes.
Creamy, comforting rice dishes like dal-chawal tend to work well with white wines that cut through the buttery texture and bring out the savory side of the dish. A Chenin blanc is a good choice here due to its light flavor but higher acidity.
On the other hand, smoky and spicy rice dishes, such as sambar rice or biryani, will need to have a stronger, richer wines that bolster the spices' effects. So, a better option here would be a Syrah or Shiraz.
Chenin Blanc in India? Perhaps even, a better future.
June 25: International Drink Chenin Day was celebrated on June 20, 2020 without much fanfare in India where most wineries have it in their portfolio but the two top producing countries France (Loire Valley) and South Africa were more enthusiastic, even though it has a lot of scope for improvement in India as vines get older and producers experiment with aging in barrels, concrete eggs or amphoras- important factors along with Terroir as observed in two blind competitions, writes Subhash Arora.
From the Indian Wine Academy. In India, Chenin Blanc is perhaps the most widely grown white variety. Accurate figures are not available, but it is produced in dry to off-dry form with a few producers crafting the Late Harvest sweet version at affordable prices. Due to high yields of up to 5 tons an acre, it is a darling for producers making low-ended wines. Sula, Grover, York and Fratelli make quality drinkable versions. Every producer makes it in different variants, with many buying grapes from contracted farmers as it is the easiest planted variety. Hazarding a guess, I would put it about 300,000-400,000 cases of Chenin Blanc used in all variants across the spectrum.
