BALMY autumn temperatures lingering into May are often described as an “Indian summer”.
So what better wine to drink on these calm, warm days than one grown in … India?
The subcontinent doesn’t leap to mind as one of the world’s great winegrowing regions – because it’s not. The 20 million-odd litres of wine it produces each year represents just five percent of the total wine production reported by New Zealand in 2025.
India’s unlikely status as a wine producer largely stems from its tropical latitudes. At between 15-22 degrees north, they are well outside the accepted band of 30-50 degrees either side of the equator in which grapes are generally held to thrive.
Argentina – now a respected member of the world’s premier wine producers – perhaps sails closest to the wind among its fellow members with vineyards as close to the equator as 24 degrees south. However the tropical influences at these latitudes are offset by plantings at altitudes of up to 2000m or more. Cool mountain air at this elevation allows grapes to balance their sugar and flavour development.
That’s not so much the case in India. Although vineyards are planted at up to 950m in the country’s north, most of its wine production is planted at about 600m close to subtropical Mumbai. That translates to no vine dormancy, several crops per year and short picking windows before the grapes overripen.
Those are challenging conditions for any grape variety. Which is why chenin blanc’s success despite them caught the eye of Gundagai grower Simon Robertson.
Reliable choice
Robertson had been consulting to growers on the Deccan Plateau, which produces 80 percent of India’s wine, and grew impressed with a variety that offered reliable performance and versatility in the subtropical environment. He reasoned it would therefore be a good choice for Gundagai – Australia’s newest official wine region.
“I’d never really drunk a lot of chenin before that [India],” he said. “After that I became a lot more interested in it and started looking out for others to try like Vouvray.
“The Indian wines can have a quite a lot of flavour. Some are broader than others and can have a bit of RS (residual sugar) but they all have a nice structure. They’re very drinkable – although they might not win any gold medals.”
Robertson said the decision to plant chenin was partly based on Gundagai’s relatively low elevation at 250m compared with its loftier neighbours in Hilltops and Tumbarumba.
He said the area’s “medium climate” hadn’t suited some of the legacy varieties planted on his Tumblong Hills vineyard. This conclusion, as well as a renewed focus on the vineyard’s core customer group of small, independent wineries, led to the decision to graft over its seven hectares of pinot noir vines with chenin cuttings received from McLaren Vale’s Coriole.
“The pinot never really did anything here – it’s too warm,” Robertson said. “The pinot vines were planted in 1998 with one of the original sparkling clones. We used to sell a bit for rose but we never made anything out of it.”
Revived interest
Chenin, by comparison, has been a hit that has “put Tumblong Hills on the map”, he said. “It’s now a core variety for us.”
“I think there’s a revived interest in chenin,” he said. “It’s one of those alternative varieties that people are starting to look for. It’s got a nice texture to it and flavours that vary from golden delicious to tropical depending on how ripe it is.”
Robertson said his early experiments with oak fermentation and maturation – common elsewhere – had now been abandoned in favour of a stainless regime to provide consistency and preserve the grape’s core acidity. Settlement on lees and stirring in tank helped add texture and flavour.
Tumblong Hills’ success with chenin blanc hasn’t gone unnoticed by other winemakers. Wine show submissions of the variety have doubled since 2019 when just 51 examples were assessed.
Wine show judges in Australia and New Zealand examined 248 chenin blanc exhibits last year across 104 individual labels. The variety now outnumbers legacy classes such as semillon, sauvignon blanc blends.
The variety is also spreading outside its traditional Australian stronghold in WA – and the Swan Valley in particular. Of the top 20 chenin blancs we ranked this year, just 13 were from Western Australia. That compares with the region’s almost complete dominance of the variety in 2019.
Still, for all that, WA chenins did dominate our rankings this year and claimed five of the top six spots. A kiwi label took out the other. Our list of the Top 20 Australian and NZ chenin blancs of 2025 follows:
The full list can be found here