Tasting Note It is good to see this signature white back and healthy in the 2025 vintage. The winter damage of 2024 froze out the crop, but the chenin vines survived to offer up a ripe, abundant vintage with authentic chenin character. The nose is impressive with ripe yellow pear, green melon, lemon and some flint/minerality. It is medium bodied, a touch sweet and rounded, with some tail-end harshness and edge that I suspect will calm and meld in the months ahead. The fruit presence is terrific; the length is excellent. Although historically considered an easy and early drinking patio white, this should please for five years and might well match richer seafood, poultry and port dishes, especially with Asian seasonings. Tasted April 2026.

Backgrounder Although best known for its chardonnays and pinot noirs, I have long enjoyed Quails’ Gate series of unoaked, fresh and varietally accurate whites, led by chenin blanc. They also make very good riesling, pinot gris and gewurztraminer. And this year a new Heirloom White based on chasselas, a Swiss variety that also has long tenure in the estate vineyard. Quails’ Gate is one of very few producers of the chenin blanc in B.C., where there is very little planted. But given that the 20-year-old vines at Quails’ Gate survived 2024 and continue to make excellent wines, perhaps other growers will be motivated. The production here is straight-forward, with no barrels involved. The grapes were hand-harvested then gently destemmed and pressed, cold-settled, and fermented in 100% stainless steel.