I love truffles. Not the gooey chocolate delicacy but the delicious yet expensive mushroom that I’d sell myself on the street to pay for. Few people are enamored or familiar with my favorite fungus. Only elite culinarians are hip to them — much like the chenin blanc grape. Truffles are to food as chenin blanc is to wine, a white that only wine geeks seem to appreciate.
It’s no wonder. Chenin blanc (shen’n BLAHNK) is the freaky Sybil of grapes. It can be sweet or dry and either austere and acidic, or lush and aromatic depending on where it's grown, how it’s tended and the winemaker’s mood. In France’s Loire Valley, where chenin blanc was first canonized in 985 A.D, it’s camouflaged behind the Vouvray label. There, it tastes luscious, slightly to very sweet, and displays a fruit soup of peach, nectarine and lime – perfect grog for people who shun bone-dry wines. However, finding quality Vouvrays – and rare dry versions from Anjou, another Loire Valley region – is like wild truffle-hunting: exasperating. Grab them if you see them, and also be on the lookout for incredible (and remarkably cheap) Crémant de Loire chenin-based sparkling wines.
But in new world regions — South Africa, Australia and the U.S. – this chameleon transforms.
This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 7, 2009.