Why White Wine Is The Future Of Wine
Kicking off a month of "winter whites" with my Loire chenin blanc bottle picks.
The rise of white wine’s popularity—as well as the decline of red wine—is no longer anecdotal or apocryphal. The news (here and here and elsewhere) that white and rosé now surpass red in worldwide consumption may have surprised a lot of people, but the data is real. The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) reported that white wine alone now accounts for 43 percent of global wine consumption, up 10 percent over the past two decades. In the U.S., the world’s biggest consumer of white wine, consumption rose 65 percent from 2000 to 2021. Meanwhile, worldwide red wine consumption is down more than 15 percent since 2007, according to the OIV report.
How the industry, sommeliers, and collectors react to this new consumer reality will be fascinating, and we’re already seeing interesting moves in established wine regions.
Look at what’s happening in Bourgueil. The prestigious Loire Valley appellation known for its ageworthy cabernet franc reds (from producers like Yannick Amirault and Pierre Gauthier) is now on its way to becoming a white-wine appellation. In July, Bourgueil winegrowers voted on a plan to allow dry whites made from chenin blanc under strict regulations: hand harvested, low yields, less than six grams of residual sugar, and a ban on chaptalization and press pumps.
“We have beautiful terroirs for chenin. We do not understand why chenin was forgotten in the decree which gave birth to our AOC in 1937,” said Philippe Boucard, the former president of the appellation’s governing body ODG Bourgueil. The reasoning behind the coming change, Boucard told the French trade publication Vitisphere, is straightforward: “At a time when the future of red is compromised, why compartmentalize us and forbid us from making white?”
Numerous Bourgueil wineries already bottle chenin blanc as IGP Val de Loire, a lower-tier French label classification. But there’s been a push for a higher-quality designation equal to the prestige reds. “The goal is to produce a high-end, quality wine,” said Jean-Luc Duveau, current head of the ODG Bourgueil. “We have to set the bar high.” Currently, there are only 20 hectares of chenin blanc in Bourgueil, which is about two percent of its vineyards. But expect that number to rise quickly.
Chenin blanc is now in such demand that it’s grown more widely in other parts of the Loire better known for cabernet franc—such as Bourgueil’s neighbor, Chinon. There’s been a resurgence of Chinon Blanc, made from chenin blanc (say that three times fast). As recently as the 1990s, only three producers in Chinon made white wine. “When I took over the estate in 2003, there were only 30 hectares of white in Chinon,” Jérôme Billard of Domaine de la Noblaie told me. “Now there are more than 90 hectares.” That was in 2020. Only five years later, there is even more.
Until the beginning of the 21st century, the Loire’s great chenin blanc appellations—among them Vouvray, Quarts de Chaume, Bonnezeaux, and Coteaux du Layon—were best known for sweet or semi-sweet wines. Which meant that chenin blanc suffered a similar fate to that of German Riesling once drinkers began to prefer dry over sweet. That’s changed over the past couple decades, as drier styles of Loire chenin Blanc have taken center stage. The big, complex wines of Savennières that we wrote about a few months ago—some of the most coveted whites in France—are a good example of this.
Then there is the rise of Montlouis-sur-Loire, which is located less than an hour up the river from Bourgueil and Chinon. For years, Montlouis had lived in the shadow of neighboring Vouvray. But in the 2010s, producers such as François Chidaine and the late Jacky Blot of Domaine de la Taille Aux Loups put Montlouis on the map for their exquisite dry chenin blanc. In the U.S., those dry Montlouis wines have had a big influence on the latest generation of American wine professionals. These days, it’s hard to find a good wine list or wine bar menu that doesn’t have one or more Montlouis wines.
But it’s not just the Loire Valley. If you look all over Europe, the trending prestige wines to watch are largely dry whites—whether it’s single-vineyard grüner veltliner in Austria, non-sparkling xarel·lo in Catalonia, the primacy of dry riesling in Germany, the rise of Rioja Blanco or Portuguese whites, and numerous other examples. Meanwhile, it’s hard to name as many red wine regions on the rise, outside of maybe spätburgunder from Germany, or Blaufränkisch from Austria’s Burgenland.
Wines like dry Loire chenin are no longer obscure wines for the so-called cool kids. They’re the future. In my recent critique of the American wine industry, I noted that California growers have planted nearly twice as many red grapes over the past decade. This is but one example of an industry that’s lost sight of its consumer. The old idea that “the first duty of wine is to be red” feels like a recipe for irrelevance.
Bourgueil can clearly see this all happening. At this point, I seriously wonder about any wine person who can’t.
Nine Nice Ones: Loire Whites
Below are my picks for great chenin blanc for winter, from $14 and up.