Men Are From Mars(anne)

I was hosting a dinner party for the usual suspects last week, and was searching the cellar for a nice white wine to pair with the garlic shrimp appetizers. After sifting through a variety of dull and dreary Chardonnays, I came upon a bottle of Marsanne that I picked up last year on my annual pilgrimage to Okanagan wine country.
For those not familiar with the varietal, Marsanne is a white grape from the famed Rhône region of France, which has been producing wine since 600 BCE. Dozens of grape varietals are planted in the Rhône region, with Grenache being the most popular red in the southern part of the valley, while Marsanne is the most popular white planting in the cooler northern section of the Rhône.
Marsanne is commonly blended with Roussanne and/or Viognier grapes to produce a more balanced wine, and will produce a deeply golden white wine, with plenty of pear and spice on the tongue, followed by a rich and nutty finish. Its slightly oily texture lets it pair well with food, coating your taste buds for extended savouring. Fortunately, Marsanne tends to thrive in the same climes as its companion wines of Roussanne and Viognier, with Marsanne ripening slightly later in the season.
While the ancestral home of Marsanne lies in the Rhône Valley of France, and is still home to the majority of plantings worldwide, the grape has thrived in other climes, most successfully in California and Australia, and we even have plantings of Marsanne right here in Canada, especially in the southern region of the Okanagan Valley near Osoyoos, the hottest and driest part of Canada’s wine country.
Marsanne thrives in dry and rocky soils, so the desertlike climate in the southern part of the Okanagan Valley produces shining examples. Canadian vineyards tend to blend Marsanne with a bit of Roussanne to add some herbal notes, and possibly even a bit of Viognier to provide a silky finish.
Faithful readers may recall me waxing poetic about Terravista Vineyards, a small hobby winery started by the Tennant family, a rockstar husband/wife pair that went into semi-retirement after selling their famed Black Hills Estate Winery in 2007 to an investment group that included 90s heartthrob Jason Priestly of 90210 fame.
The Black Hills Estate Winery had a cultlike following in the early years of the new millennium, with their Bordeaux-styled Note Bene selling out immediately after each release, so the wine lovers of the Okanagan watched and waited for the Tennant family to get bored of retirement and open another winery, and were rewarded with Bob and Senka Tennant opened Terravista Vineyards in 2008.
The Terravista Figaro uses the time-tested blend of Marsanne, Roussanne, and Viognier to produce an off-dry white wine with notes of nectarine and almond, with a silky lemon meringue finish. I visit the small vineyard on the Naramata Bench just outside of Penticton every year or two, and always bring home a case of their small-batch white wines lovingly produced by luminaries of the BC wine industry.
Church & State is another Okanagan Vineyard that produces a single-varietal Marsanne, as well as bends of Marsanne with Rousanne and Viognier. The single-varietal bottling of Marsanne leads with aromas of apricot and honeycomb on the nose, followed by subtle notes of orange peel and almond on the palate, and a very dry finish. I like to pair this wine with seafood dishes, or with the salad course at a dinner party.
My favourite domestic example comes from the Moon Curser Vineyard, located just outside of Osoyoos, where they produce a Marsanne blended with Rousanne in the classic Rhône style.
Moon Curser Vineyards opened their doors in 2006, and specialize in unique European grape varietals that are rarely found in Canada, with Marsanne, Tannat, Dolcetto, and Touriga Nacional being some of their best sellers.
Being located in a hot and dry region of the Okanagan, the majority of the plantings at Moon Curser are big and bold reds, with the Petit Verdot and Tempranillo being my favourites. Fortunately, they have small but well-curated plantings of all the popular white grapes, with the less-common Marsanne growing in popularity every year. Skip that boring old Chardonnay at your local wine shop, and take home a Marsanne today!