Eating and Drinking with Solo Vino's Chuck Kanski: Gamling and McDuck Chenin Blanc
August 19, 2015
Owner of full service wine shop, Solo Vino, and wine expert for Minnesota Monthly's New Vintage, Chuck Kanski joins the Current's Morning Show to talk about wine trends in Minnesota and around the world.
This week, Chuck joins us to talk about a California wine with Minnesota connections. "At the end of the day, we have so many wonderful connections to California, to Oregon, to Europe with our winemakers, and it's exciting for me to talk about that," Chuck says. "It's about the people."
Minnesota natives Gabrielle Shaffer and Adam McClary left their day jobs and moved to California to be winemakers under the name Gamling and McDuck. "They wanted to create a French-style Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc, but that connected to the California terroir," Chuck explains.
In 2009 Shaffer and McClary crafted their first vintage of 122 cases of Cabernet Franc. Chenin Blanc followed the next year. They released both wines together in 2011.
"The grape Chenin Blanc is a little bit of a conundrum," Chuck explains. "It's a varietal that can produce a wine of great sweetness to off-dry to bone dry. So we see Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley in the form of a dessert wine, and we also see a Chenin Blanc in the form of a Savennières, which is arguably one of the longest livable white wines when crafted correctly.
"So you have this incredible grape that no one in California up until a couple of years ago was really honoring, and that's what Gabe and Adam wanted to do. They wanted to honor this amazing grape."
Gamling and McDuck wines are available at these Twin Cities-area sellers:
1010 Washington Wine & Spirits, Minneapolis
Zipps Liquors, Minneapolis
France 44, Minneapolis
Lunds & Bylerly's Wines and Spirits, various locations
Solo Vino, St. Paul
South Lyndale Liquor, Minneapolis
Sunfish Cellars, Lilydale, Minn.
Vinifera Wines and Ales, Plymouth, Minn.
The Wine Thief and Ale Jail, St. Paul, Minn.
Thomas Liquors, St. Paul, Minn.
Stinson Wine Beer and Spirits, Minneapolis
North Loop Wine and Spirits, Minneapolis.
