Spier Chenin Blanc '07

Country: South Africa
Thoughts: Although most of the observations here are derived from first tastings, that's not the case for all; a few - like Spier here - were sampled beforehand. Total Wine happens to offer weekend tastings and, when we're in the neighborhood, we're only too happy to take them up on it. Usually it's a collection that's on sale, but Spier had its own little stand with just its own wines. So we plowed through the whites and came away with bottles of chenin blanc and a sweet wine, which will appear here when we get to it. With precious little experience with chenin - just this one, actually - it's hard to tell how close the Spier came to the ideal wine for this grape. At any rate, the nose was half fruity - hints of orange - while the other half gave a pretty strong indication of dryness; it was clearly the dominant part of the bouquet, and it nearly bordered on a sour-type smell. There were hints of earthiness as well. The dryness from the nose was mostly absent from the taste, however. When the wine first hit my tongue, the texture seemed almost syrupy, but thinned out as the tasting went on. The actual taste was in the same ballpark as a pinot grigio, though not as loud and bold. The finish was restrained and I didn't really notice anything until the wine was well down the hatch; at that point, a hint of caramel - of all things - took over. All together, it was an eminently drinkable wine; a smooth, mellow finish to a Sunday that pulled together elements of several other, more popular, wines.
Do-over? When I'm in the mood to relax - which is pretty much all the time
Final Grade: B