Enjoy the last hot days of the season with unique whites like chenin blanc

Summer officially ends Sept. 22, yet the warm - and sometimes downright hot - daytime temperatures continue through October. So do picnics, barbecues, dinners on the deck and jaunts to the coast.

For every summer-like day-into-evening, there is crisp white wine to quench the thirst, get the saliva jets firing and cool the palate. Chardonnay and sauvignon blanc are easy choices, but why not try something unusual, a bit more racy and altogether local?

A citrus-and-peach-packed, old-vine chenin blanc, perhaps. A Russian River Valley albariño, rare to these parts yet a common quaff in Spain … or a bracing riesling from Napa Valley, where it’s said to be too warm to successfully grow the grape.

A trait these wines share is what winemakers call “nervosity,” “tension” or “energy.” By that, they mean there is enough natural acidity to offset the sunny sweetness of the ripe grapes. Think of a tightrope walker shifting the pole up and down - acidity on one end, fruit sweetness on the other - to maintain balance and stay on the wire.

Take chenin blanc, one of the great wine grapes of France’s Loire Valley. In the hands of Healdsburg winemaker Leo Hansen, his Saini Farms Dry Creek Valley Chenin Blanc has sun-kissed peach and pear aromas and flavors complemented by mouthwatering acidity and a hint of minerality. It’s an ideal warm-weather quaff.

That Hansen, a former sommelier in Denmark, found chenin blanc in Sonoma is a marvel. In 1982, there were 45,000 acres of the grape planted in California; today there are approximately 5,000 acres, with most of the lost acreage replanted to more popular (and more profitable) chardonnay. The majority of what’s left goes into jug and boxed wines; a few devotees, such as Hansen and the Saini family, keep serious chenin blanc alive.

Serve at night

Hansen is the winemaker for Stuhlmuller Vineyards in Alexander Valley, as well as his own Leo Steen Wines (Steen is his middle name and fittingly, it’s what South Africans call chenin blanc). He arrived in California in 1999, to make wine by day and serve it by night.

“When I was the sommelier at Dry Creek Kitchen (in Healdsburg), the first years of the restaurant I was always looking for interesting and exciting varieties to pour by the glass, which at the time was close to none existing from Sonoma,” Hansen said. “I felt there was a place to bring back chenin blanc and especially a dry, food-friendly version.

“This idea began in 2004, but it took until late 2005 before I connected with the Sainis, who planted their chenin blanc vineyard in 1981. Old vines were key to me, as their grapes hold their acidity in a warm climate. My first vintage was 2006 for that wine, and I later added two other ‘old’ vineyards to the program, in Mendocino and Santa Barbara counties.”

For Tim Meinken and his wife/co-winemaker, Anne Giere, their decision to produce albariño came during a trip to the Rias Baixas region of northwestern Spain, where the lighter-bodied, tangy, seafood-friendly varietal is home.

“We were moving away from white wines with big oak, such as chardonnay, even though it was our biggest seller at the time,” Meinken recalled. “Albariño had everything we liked in a white wine: crisp, bright, aromatic and no oak. We ripped out an acre of chardonnay vines in Russian River Valley in 2006 and planted the first albariño in Sonoma County. We made a small amount in 2009 and released the 2010 under our Gordian Knot label.”

Meinken said sales of the wine took off from the start: “Consumers are definitely looking for new and exciting varietals.”

Those who follow the wines of France know sémillon and sauvignon blanc are typically combined to make Bordeaux blanc. There isn’t much sémillon planted in the North Coast, so sauvignon blanc usually wings it, solo.

Add complexity

But not in Mendocino County, where Kristy Charles and her family, at Foursight Wines, planted sémillon with the intent of using it to add complexity to their sauvignon blanc. To their delight, the sémillon from their Charles Vineyard showed so much personality that they decided to bottle a stand-alone sémillon.

“There are less than 3 acres of sémillon in Anderson Valley, so it’s definitely a rare grape for the area,” Charles said. “Most visitors have absolutely no idea what sémillon is or how to pronounce it.” (It’s seh-mee-yohn.) “When we explain sémillon’s place in the wine world and the likelihood that they’ve already had it from Bordeaux or Australia, they’re intrigued.”

It’s a tip of the cap to Sonoma that hip wine brands, including Jennifer Williams’ and Mark Porembski’s Zeitgeist Cellars in Napa Valley, sources trousseau gris grapes from the Fanucchi-Wood Road Vineyard, near the intersection of Fulton and Wood roads in Santa Rosa.

Once widely planted in California, trousseau gris fell out of favor, but not with Peter Fanucchi. His father, Arcangelo, planted this white mutation of red trousseau in the early 1980s, and the son has passionately maintained the vines. At one time, Fanucchi bottled his own trousseau gris, but now has winemakers eager to purchase his fruit to produce alternatives to chardonnay and sauvigon blanc.

Too hot?

Zeitgeist’s Napa Valley neighbors, Stu and Charlie Smith of Smith-Madrone Vineyards & Winery, planted riesling in 1972 on their Spring Mountain property, and they were called crazy. Riesling in Calistoga? Too hot, they were told.

“There were the four most important varietals in the world, which are cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, chardonnay and what we then called Johannisberg riesling,” Stu Smith said. “We tried with all our might to make pinot noir work, but it just wasn’t to be.

“Riesling was altogether different. We understood from the get-go that wine was about balance, elegance, character and the site. We knew that Germany made the best German rieslings, and that Alsace made the best Alsatian rieslings, and if we were to make the best Smith-Madrone rieslings, the wine had to be the expression of our site, climate and passion for the grape.”

The Smiths also produce chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, yet riesling is their main source of pride.

“Why do we keep making it in the face of more profitable cabernet sauvignon?” Stu Smith asked.

“I personally love the wine, and how can we give it up when we do it so well? If money was the driving force, I would have never gone to the mountains to grow grapes, let alone go into the wine business. I’d buy McDonalds franchises.”

Healdsburg resident Linda Murphy writers about wine for Sonoma and Decanter magazines. She is also the author, with Jancis Robinson, of the book “American Wine: The Ultimate Companion to the Wines and Wine producers of the USA.” Reach her at linda@lindamurphywine.com.