Shenandoah Vineyards 2010 Amador County Chenin Blanc/Viognier ($14)

Difficult as it may be to imagine today, chenin blanc not so long ago was one of California's more popular wine grapes. As recently as 1982, some 45,000 acres were planted to chenin blanc in the state. Today, the total is down to less than 10,000.

Chardonnay passed up chenin blanc as the state's most popular green grape largely because it yields a heavier wine that can better handle ample oak, and because it is closely associated with one of the world's more prestigious appellations, France's Burgundy.

In the meantime, the semisweet style that made chenin blanc so wildly popular in the 1950s fell out of favor, and increasingly the grape became identified largely with inexpensive and unexciting jug wines out of the San Joaquin Valley.

When handled affectionately, however, chenin blanc can produce a highly refreshing wine with clean zesty fruit, a lean structure, a note of spice and brisk acidity. It's customarily a delicate wine, which works against it on the competition circuit, where mass tends to be rewarded over restraint. Chenin blanc's slim structure and refined fruitiness, however, make it the perfect summer wine.

Nowadays, only the more adventuresome wineries devote much effort to chenin blanc. Bogle Vineyards of Clarksburg has been recognized for years for its zippy chenin blanc, made with fruit from the rich and cool Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta, where the grape thrives, yielding wines unusually vivid and invigorating. Chalone Vineyard of Soledad, while celebrated principally for its chardonnay and pinot noir, continues to make an assertive chenin blanc, the 2007 vintage of which Sacramento wine merchant Darrell Corti praises for its singular representation of terroir.

And up in the Sierra foothills, winemaker Paul Sobon of Shenandoah Vineyards has released a wine that combines the fruit attributes of chenin blanc with the floral notes of viognier. The result is the Shenandoah Vineyards 2010 Amador County Chenin Blanc/Viognier, a light- to medium-bodied white in which the chenin blanc offers notes of spiced pear and melon, while the viognier adds a couple of peaches to the fruit bowl. Both are set off against the toastiness of oak provided by the older American and French barrels in which the wine was fermented and aged.

The wine is 55 percent chenin blanc, 45 percent viognier. While inexpensive and packaged in a screwcap bottle, the wine delivers more nuance and intrigue than the price and the packaging suggest. Yet, the wine isn't weighty, crossing the palate with a stone-fruit sunniness and a citric snap.

The blending of chenin blanc and viognier may be new for Shenandoah Vineyards, but the combination has been around since the early 1990s, when Pine Ridge Vineyards in Napa Valley experimented with the mix. They found it to their liking, and so did wine enthusiasts, who have made it one of the winery's more popular releases. (The latest Pine Ridge version, the 2010, consists of 79 percent chenin blanc from Clarksburg, while the 21 percent of viognier was grown at Lodi.)

Paul Sobon long has been a big fan of the Pine Ridge chenin blanc/viognier, and up front acknowledges that it provides the style he wants to emulate. The big difference between the two is that the Pine Ridge isn't exposed to wood. Sobon said he used barrels to process the grapes for the 2010 because he didn't have any vacant tanks when the fruit came in. With future vintages he'll follow the Pine Ridge practice of cold fermenting the juice in stainless-steel vats and eschewing oak.

By the numbers: 13.5 percent alcohol, 360 cases, $14.

Context: Paul Sobon recommends the wine with chicken, seafood and pasta in a white sauce, and he's also found that it has the build, fruit and acidity to stand up to pepper steak.

Availability: The wine is carried by Total Wine & More at Roseville.

More information: The tasting room at Shenandoah Vineyards, 12300 Steiner Road, Plymouth, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.

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Long-time wine critic and competition judge Mike Dunne continues his relationship with The Bee as a contributing columnist to the Food & Wine section. His wine selections are based solely on open and blind tastings, judging at competitions, and visits to wine regions. Check out his blog at www.ayearinwine.com, and reach him at mikedunne@winegigs.com.

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