Chardonnay Styles

Chardonnay in the shade

No one reading this little essay will be surprised to hear that Chardonnay remains the nation's best selling white wine.  Or, that Chardonnay rules in most of the world's wine drinking countries. 

According to 2024 data, Chardonnay  is the most planted white wine grape in the world.  Same for California, where French Colombard, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscat of Alexandria round out the top five. 

I find it surprising that Colombard and Pinot Gris beat out Sauvignon Blanc.  No question that Pinot Gris has been having its day, and maybe still is.  Colombard, though, is another matter.  After a major brush with popularity in France and California, interest in Colombard as a wine grape has been waning.  

At one time, in France, Colombard was a traditional part of Cognac and Armagnac, but it proved unreliable in the vineyard, and plantings have been shrinking. 

In California's Central Valley, where its known as French Colombard, large quantities of the variety are used to fill out jug wine blends.  And because of its neutral character, the French Colombard is a favorite of brandy distillers.

As for Chardonnay, when you think of how many white wine grapes there are, it's impressive that a single grape, with relatively little varietal flavor, is such a market beater in the wine shop, the restaurant and the home dining room.

So, it would be worth knowing why Chardonnay is on so many people's wish list.  And, what is it about Chardonnay that has people asking for it more often than great white wines like Riesling, or Sauvignon Blanc, or Sémillon, or Gewürztraminer?

The Taste of Chardonnay

A semi-popular trend that circulated around California and Washington not long ago was the emergence of unoaked Chardonnay.  Styles went from lots of oak, to no oak, to a little oak, finally to a balanced use of oak as a seasoning.  Lately, winemakers in both states have been pretty good getting the oak seasoning just right.

And the oak is all from French forests.  No winery, known for Chardonnay, ages it in American, Slovenian, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, or oak from anywhere else.

Looking at Chardonnay sans oak, then, there are primary ripe fruit flavors such as  lemons, grapefruit, apples, pears, honeysuckle, roasted nuts, supported by crisp acidity.  Chardonnay from warmer vineyards can lean more toward peach and tropical fruit like pineapple.

Old World and New World

The world of Chardonnay is stylistically split between old world Burgundy, and a New World style, predominately from California and Australia.  Italy, Spain, Germany and Portugal are considered old world.  But, except for northern Italy, the others grow very little Chardonnay.  

White Burgundy flavors  include Granny Smith apple, mineral and bracing acidity.  New World Chardonnay tends to be more ripe fruit, especially mango, passion fruit and Golden Delicious apples.

All of the above are generalizations, since there are many factors that influence the style of any Chardonnay: terroir, clonal selection, use of oak, vineyard orientation, winemaker's preferences, and others.

The important thing is to experiment and sample Chardonnays from different places, until you find the one or two wines that appeal to you the most.  

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Next post: "You've Gotta Be Joking!" 

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The Barossa

Storm clouds over Barossa vineyard

In South Australia, a short distance from Adelaide, is a wine region with an international reputation, especially for flavor packed red wine.  Aussie shorthand for the place is"The Barossa."  

But say it like a native, compressing the word so that it sounds like "Ber-ossa," not "Ber-ross-a."  The full name is the Barossa Valley, Australia's premiere producer of a signature red wine, known as Shiraz. 

Syrah is one of the world's best known and best red wines.  The benchmark for world class  Syrah is the northern Rhone Valley of France.  Australians, though, decided to call Syrah after what they believed to be the grape's city of origin, in a land far from France. 

In the 19th century, Australians believed the origin of the Syrah grape was Shiraz, the ancient capital of Persia.  DNA testing eventually proved this wrong, but the Australian wine business had established the name Shiraz, so ever after, the name stuck.

Barossa Shiraz is at the big and robust end of the Syrah style scale. The wines are rich, ripe and concentrated with plenty of dark fruit flavors.  And it is the antithesis  of northern Rhone Syrah, like Cote Rotie, that is all refined smoky spice and raspberry.  

Aside.  In 1993 (Has it been that long ago?) I had the good fortune to be invited as one of two international judges for Penfolds Rewards of Patience, a comprehensive tasting of Penfolds wines, stretching back to the 1950s, held at the Penfolds main winery in Nuriootpa, Barossa Valley.

The marathon tasting of multiple vintages of 13 red wines, seven white wines and a handful of "Special Bin" wines, lasted three days, standing at a tasting bench, and included such vaunted tasting of 22 vintages of the legendary Penfolds Grange. 

Shiraz, the iconic Barossa red wine was represented by five blends (most, like the Grange, blended with 15-20% Cabernet Sauvignon) and three 100% varietal Shiraz: Magill Estate, Coonawarra, Kalimna. 

Common descriptors for the 100% Shiraz, mentioned by most judges, were chocolate, plum, mulberry, spice and saddle leather. The addition of Cabernet Sauvignon, in the Shiraz/Cabernet blends, shifted the descriptors more to blackberry, leafy and anise.  

Of course, life is not all Shiraz, even in The Barossa.  After all, what would life be like without Cabernet Sauvignon or even Grenache, two reds that are part of the mix in the Barossa Valley and neighboring Eden Valley, officially a part of The Barossa.   

Here's a brief look at what to expect from Barossa's main grapes: 

Cabernet Sauvignon: deep in color, with forward cherry and plum flavors; excellent as a varietal and in blends, such as Penfolds Bin 707, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.  

Grenache: ripe raspberry, fine tannin and good acidity; Barossa draws its depth and complexity from a high percentage of old vine Grenache.

Mourvedre: called Mataro by Barossa old timers, Mourvedre is dense and herbal, mostly from old vines that can also impart ginger and ripe blackberry notes. 

Riesling: still the most planted white grape in The Barossa, the variety is known for its intense tropical fruit and citrus flavors, such as the range of Rieslings from Wolf Blass. 

Chardonnay: not a star player in The Barossa, but is full bodied with crisp acidity and ripe apple flavors.

Semillon: the Barossa style follows the robust full-bodied Australian style for this popular white wine.  Barossa Semillon, especially aged in American oak, is rich and figgy. 

As a seasoned wine drinker, or an advocate expanding your wine knowledge of Australian wine, a good starting place is the Barossa Valley.  In the words of the Down Under's noted wine writer, James Halliday, "The Barossa Valley is, and always will be, the womb of the Australian wine industry."

 

Next post: Chardonnay Styles 

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Touring Tuscany

A Tuscan house on a hill

In 1996, the saturated genre of lifestyle books was rocked by the release of "Under the Tuscan Sun," a glossy memoir about life in a small town in Tuscany.  In the highly descriptive account, American author, Frances Mayes, detailed the joys and frustrations of restoring a run-down villa, in the scenic hilltop town of Cortona. 

Mayes infused her story with colorful characters and recounted her experiences enjoying local food and wines.  Her personal tale ignited the imaginations of American readers looking for new travel adventures.  

For years, savvy wine tourists knew about Tuscany and loved the place, but Mayes' book opened new vistas for people discovering one of Italy's most beautiful and magical wine regions for the first time. 

Tuscany radiates a quality that is hard to describe. But to truly understand why people are so crazy about the place, you have to go there.  There's the Tuscan landscape, the art, the towns, the medieval architecture, the Etruscan history and, of course, the people and their passion for the local food and wine.

Perhaps, nowhere else in Italy, does all of these attractions meld into one satisfying package as in Tuscany.  

A visit to Tuscany is a stimulating experience. Pulling off the road for a break you might see two carabiniere having their espresso with a  shot of anisette, enjoy a performance of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" in the Florence opera house, or learn about the wide variety of Tuscan grapes and wine. 

Sangiovese is the principal red grape of Tuscany.  Not only is Sangiovese a major variety in Tuscan wine, but it's grown nearly everywhere along the Italian peninsula, except south of Rome and Sicily, where hardier red grapes are better suited to withstand the sustained higher daytime heat and sultry nights.

The taste of Sangiovese might be described as savory, with traces of tart cherries and herbs.  A lot of Sangiovese, especially California as a varietal, is masked by vanilla notes from new oak.  Tuscan Sangiovese, sometimes blended with a little (or a lot) of Cabernet Sauvignon, can be overshadowed by the more dominant flavors of the cabernet.  

 Tuscan Sangiovese forms the base for Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino. Additionally, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Syrah are blended with Sangiovese in proprietary wines like Sassicaia and Ornellaia.

 An aside. My first visit to Tuscany was in the early 1950s. I was a young airman, stationed in Germany, with a curiosity to see as much of Europe as I could afford.  So, my friend Tom and I took off on a road trip to Italy in my 1950 Chevy Bel-Air. 

We were headed for Naples and the Isle of Capri, slowly navigating a route that took us through Tuscany on pokey two-lane roads. No maps and, of course, no GPS. I didn't know about Tuscany then, even though our destination that day was the city of Florence. 

Tom Indelicato, an Italian-American from Queens, had  a New Yorker's understanding of Italian food and wine. As a growing boy, I ate a lot of Italian food at the table of a large welcoming family my mother worked for, at their Italian deli and Hoagie shop in suburban Philly. 

Even with our limited experience of Italian food, Tom and I were impressed with the quality of food and wine we sampled on our way through Tuscany, and how eager we were to eat as much of it as we could during our travels.  

It may sound like an exaggeration, but after numerous visits, I'm convinced that you have to work hard to find poor food and average wine in Italy. 

Reliving the pleasures, especially the wines of Tuscany I was introduced to in the 1950s, have been repeated numerous times on return visits as a wine writer.  

There are at least six distinct varieties in Italy called Trebbiano, including Trebbiano Toscano, the main white variety in Galestro.  Vernaccia is the other notable Tuscan  white grape, used in Vernaccia di San Gimignano.

Trebbiano is also grown mainly as a blending grape or as the base wine for distillates.  The French call it Ugni Blanc. In California, Trebbiano has unexplainably been known as St. Emilion.  And because of its somewhat bland character, the grape picked up the derisive name,"Ugly Blank."   

The best effort to make a respectable Trebbiano is not in Tuscany, where the ordinary  Trebbiano Toscano often presents as a high acid, somewhat green leafy wine, better suited blended with another variety or as the base wine for grape spirits.  Where Trebbiano shows more personality is in Soave Classico and Lugana, both from Venetto.  

 A few more Tuscan wines to consider include Vermentino and Vernaccia di San Giminano, two white wines not as widely known as Trebbiano, although Trebbiano is not as interesting as either Vermentino or Vernaccia. 

International varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah are popular choices blended with Sangiovese, mainly in Chianti and Bolgheri.  Cabernet Franc is an alternate variety, with Cabernet Sauvignon, in Carmignano. 

Few places in the world combine the pleasures of good food and great wine in a relaxing setting as Tuscany.  Thousands of other travelers have discovered the irresistible attraction of Tuscany, but there's still room for the adventurous. 

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Next post:  The Barossa 

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