In the vast constellation of wine grapes, few shine as brightly, or as unpredictably, as Chenin Blanc. At Belthazar, we celebrate not only the classics, but the chameleons – the varieties that defy easy categorisation and continue to surprise us with each glass. Enter Chenin Blanc: a grape of boundless versatility, capable of dry, sweet, still, and sparkling without breaking a sweat. We’d go so far as to say that Chenin is an overachiever, with few wines able to stand up to its range, personality, and pure drinking pleasure.
Originating in France’s Loire Valley, it was first mentioned in writing as far back as 845AD under the name “plant d’Anjou”. By the 15th century, it was renamed Chenin Blanc after Mont Chenin, and it’s been turning heads ever since. The Loire remains its spiritual home, where cool-climate, limestone-rich soils shape crisp, mineral-driven expressions in Anjou, elegant off-dry styles in Vouvray, and decadent, botrytis-kissed dessert wines in Quarts de Chaume. Chenin even gets the Champagne treatment in Saumur, where it bubbles away into fine sparkling Crémant de Loire.
Fast-forward to the 1600s, when a few brave cuttings made their way aboard Dutch East India Company ships and landed in the Cape. Jan van Riebeeck’s journals in 1655 list Steendruif, now recognised as Chenin Blanc, among the very first grapes cultivated in South Africa, kickstarting one of South Africa’s greatest wine legacies. Soon, it became the most planted grape in the country, celebrated not for its nuance, but its vigour. For years, it toiled in the background: mass-produced, distilled, forgotten. But today? Oh, today it’s a crown jewel. South African Chenin Blanc is no longer a workhorse, it’s a thoroughbred.
Today, South African Chenin Blanc is a beacon of quality, individuality, and terroir expression. Producers across the Cape, many of them young, fearless, and fiercely committed to sustainability, have returned to old bush vines, dry farming, and minimalist winemaking to coax out Chenin’s wilder, more complex sides. These are wines of texture and tension, often aged in old oak or fermented in amphora, singing with notes of quince, yellow apple, lanolin, ginger, hay, and even salted almonds. From the cool, coastal breezes of Elgin and Walker Bay that bring piercing acidity and a green apple crunch, to the sun-drenched bush vines of the Swartland that offer apricot, mango and spice-laced complexity, not to mention the oak-aged beauties of Stellenbosch, all baked apple, caramel and creamy texture… it goes to show that Chenin doesn’t just survive here, it thrives. While the Loire might be its birthplace, South Africa has taken Chenin into its heart and is recognised for making some of the best Chenin Blancs in the world.
At Belthazar, we honour the Chenin’s full range – from crisp and linear to round and textured. For drinkers who crave depth without pomp, and complexity without cliché, Chenin Blanc offers a world of pleasure.
3 July 2025
