Is Chenin Blanc sweet or dry?

Both, and everything in between. The same grape makes bone-dry unwooded whites, richer barrel-fermented dry wines, gently off-dry everyday bottles, amber skin-contact wines, and full-on sweet Noble Late Harvest and straw wines. If a Cape label doesn't flag sweetness, assume it's dry — that's where most modern South African Chenin now sits.

How do I tell if a Chenin Blanc will be sweet?

Read the back label. South African sweet Chenin is usually declared: 'Noble Late Harvest,' 'Late Harvest,' 'straw wine' or 'Special Late Harvest' all signal sweetness, and a residual-sugar figure sometimes appears. Anything simply labelled Chenin Blanc, or 'dry,' or 'wooded/barrel-fermented,' will be dry. Off-dry wines are the grey zone — a touch of sweetness balanced by acidity — and are worth seeking out for spicy food.

What is barrel-fermented Chenin Blanc?

Chenin fermented and aged in oak barrels rather than steel tanks. The oak adds baked-apple, honey, oatmeal and a creamier texture, and gives the wine a spine to age five to ten years or more. It's the Cape's serious, food-and-cellar style — think of it as a white with the presence of a red, and the counterweight to the crisp unwooded everyday bottling.

What is skin-contact Chenin Blanc?

Chenin left to ferment on its grape skins the way a red wine is, which pulls colour, texture and a light grippy tannin from the skins. The result is amber or orange in the glass, with dried-apricot, orange-peel and herb notes and a savoury grip. It's the natural-wine frontier of the grape — Testalonga's 'El Bandito' is the Cape's best-known example.

Chenin Blanc Styles: Dry to Sweet to Sparkling

Ask whether Chenin Blanc is sweet or dry and you've asked the wrong question. The right one is which Chenin — because no other white grape covers this much ground.

In Part 1 we made the case for South Africa as the world capital of the grape. This part hands you the map that makes a Cape wine list legible: the six or seven things the word "Chenin" can mean, in order from bone-dry to lusciously sweet, and how to spot each one before you commit.

The dry end, where most Cape Chenin lives

Start here, because this is where the modern South African revolution happened. Two dry styles, one grape.

Fresh and unwooded is the everyday face: fermented in steel to keep it bright, it's all green apple, quince, pear and citrus over a wet-stone freshness, with that faint waxy-honey edge that tells you it's Chenin and not Sauvignon. It's crisp, it's affordable, and it's one of the best-value food whites on the planet. This is the bottle to open on a Tuesday.

Barrel-fermented is the serious one. Ferment and age the same grape in oak and it turns broad and honeyed — baked apple, oatmeal, dried peach, a creamy texture and a backbone built to age a decade. This is the Cape's fine-wine Chenin, a white with the presence of a red, and it's where names like Ken Forrester's "FMC" and Beaumont's "Hope Marguerite" made their reputations. If a label says "wooded," "barrel-fermented," or "reserve," expect this.

The gap between an unwooded Tuesday Chenin and a barrel-fermented reserve is the whole argument for the grape. Same fruit, two completely different wines — and both are dry.

Off-dry: the secret weapon

Between bone-dry and sweet sits a sliver of Chenin that carries a touch of residual sugar — honeysuckle, ripe pear, a rounder finish — held in check by the grape's racing acidity so it never reads as sweet, just generous. It's unfashionable to admit you like it, which is a mistake. A cool off-dry Chenin is the single best wine for chilli heat: Cape Malay curry, Thai, anything with a spice that a dry wine would fight. Check the back label; the good ones rarely shout about it.

Skin-contact: the frontier

Leave Chenin to ferment on its skins the way you would a red, and it comes out amber, grippy and savoury — dried apricot, orange peel, dried herbs, a light tannic pull. This is the natural-wine edge of the grape, and the Cape does it as well as anywhere. Testalonga's "El Bandito" in the Swartland is the calling-card bottle: Chenin at its most untamed, and a genuinely different drinking experience from anything in the dry section above.

The sweet end: Noble Late Harvest and straw wine

Now the grand finale, and the styles that first made Chenin famous in the Loire centuries ago. Chenin's high acidity is exactly what lets it turn sweet without turning cloying, so its dessert wines stay bright where other grapes go flabby.

Noble Late Harvest is made from grapes shrivelled by botrytis — noble rot — which concentrates sugar and adds apricot, honey, marmalade and orange peel. Straw wine (vin de paille) takes the other route: grapes dried on mats or racks after picking until they're half raisins, then pressed into something intense and caramelised. Mullineux's straw wine and Fairview's "La Beryl" are the celebrated examples. Both of these sit inside South Africa's wider dessert and fortified wine tradition — worth its own reading once the sweet tooth is engaged.

And the bubbles

Chenin also earns a place in the blend of many a Cap Classique — South Africa's traditional-method sparkling — where it brings green apple, citrus and a bready lift. It's rarely the headline grape in the fizz, but it's often the quiet reason a Cape sparkling tastes fresh.

How to read the label, in one move

Here's the shortcut to carry into a bottle shop. The word "Chenin Blanc" alone, or "dry," or "wooded" means dry — the vast majority of what you'll meet. "Off-dry" means a touch of sweetness, and it's your friend with spice. "Late Harvest," "Noble Late Harvest," "straw wine" or a high residual-sugar number means dessert. "Skin-contact" or "amber" means the grippy natural style. Everything else is detail.

Styles tell you what the wine is trying to be. But the thing that separates a pleasant Cape Chenin from a profound one isn't the winemaking choice at all — it's the age of the vine underneath it.

That's next. Part 3 — Old-Vine Chenin and the Old Vine Project is the story of the gnarled bush vines that made South African Chenin serious, and the seal that prints a vineyard's birthday on the bottle.