France vs South Africa: which marketing practices regarding Chenin wines ?

Chenin Blanc variety, originally from the Anjou region (Middle Loire Valley, France), is produced in 10 countries around the world (Schirmer, 2014). In terms of wine styles, this varietal is “probably the most versatile grape in the world” (Robinson, 1994), allowing winemakers to produce premium quality wines of various sweetness, as well as sparkling and fortified wines. But it is only recently that Chenin wines in all their variations have become more and more popular among wine amateurs, making the headlines of Decanter magazine (02/2017, 04/2016) and Wine Spectator (05/2016). Two main areas are producing Chenin wines in the world: South Africa and the Loire Valley region in France. South Africa is the first producer of Chenin as a country, with 17940 hectares. Chenin has a major impact on the South African wine chain as its volume represents 18.2% of the total volume of harvested grapes (SAWIS, 2015). Secondly, France follows with 9100 hectares of Chenin, with 95% planted mainly in the Loire Valley which explains our focus on this region. The economic impact on regional wine chain is also of similar importance: Chenin accounts for 14.1% of plantings in the Loire Valley (Interloire, 2015). On the marketing side, collective promotion by Loire Valley producers significantly differs from their South African counterpart. In the Loire Valley, Chenin is mostly labelled with a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO): this explains why the grape valorization has been hidden behind the 14 wine PDOs that do not oblige producers to mention Chenin. On the other hand, the South African wines are usually marketed under a country-of-origin (COO) mention, stating most of the time "Wines of South Africa" (WOSA) and the grape name on the labels to be more easily readable in their main export markets such as the US, Germany or the UK. Nevertheless individual and collective promotion regarding Chenin wines have recently evolved towards more complexity: indeed, we have observed that the notion of terroir as a reference to a local origin has recently gained exposure in premium South African Chenin wines whereas, in the Loire Valley, a special Chenin group has been created by the board of producers from Anjou-Saumur (FVAS) for them to work to together across all “Chenin PDOs”. As the marketing strategies are evolving in these two wine areas, we can therefore expect that different families of producers of Chenin are emerging, allowing us to eventually draw a map of Chenin producers not only based on their origin but also their use of “Chenin” as a branding element of their individual promotion.