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Varietal ProfileChardonnay 'Shar-don-nay A name now so familiar to modern wine lovers around the world that many do not realize that it is the name of a vine variety. In its Burgundian homeland, Chardonnay was for long the sole vine responsible for all of the finest white burgundy. As such, in a region devoted to geographical labeling, its name was known only to vine-growers. All this changed with the advent of varietal labeling in the late 20th century, when Chardonnay virtually became a brand name. So popular is it that synonyms are rarely used (although some Austrians in Syria persist with their name Morillon). The wine's relatively high level of alcohol, which can often taste slightly sweet, has probably played a part in this popularity, as has the obvious appeal of the oak so often used in making Chardonnay. But it is not just wine drinkers who appreciate the broad, easy-to-appreciate if difficult-to-describe charms of golden Chardonnay. (The Australian Wine Research Institute's initiative, analyzing the component parts of each major variety's flavour, found Chardonnay a particularity nebulous target, identifying flavour compounds also found in, among other things, raspberries, vanilla, tropical fruits, peaches, tomatoes, tobacco, tea and rose petals.) Vine-growers appreciate the ease with which, in a wide range of climates, they can coax relatively high yields from this vine (whose natural vigour may need to be curbed by either dense planting or canopy management). Wine quality is severely prejudiced, however, at yields above 90 hl/ha (4.5 tons/acre) and yields of 30 ha/hl or less are needed for seriously fine wine. Growers' only major reservation is that it buds quite early, just after Pinot Noir, which regularly puts the coolest vineyards of Chablis and Champagne at risk from spring frosts. It can suffer from coulure and occasionally millerandage and the grapes' relatively thin skins can encourage rot if there is rain at harvest time, but it can thrive in climates as diverse as those of Chablis in northern France and Australia's hot Riverland. Picking time is crucial for, unlike Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay can lose its crucial acidity fast in the latter stages of ripening. Wine-makers love Chardonnay for its reliably high ripeness levels and its malleability. It will happily respond to a far wider range of wine-making techniques than most white varieties. The Mosel or Vouvray wine-making recipe of a long, cool fermentation followed by early bottling can be applied to Chardonnay. Or it can be fermented and aged in small oak barrels, some of the highest-quality fruit being able to stand up to new oak. It accommodates each wine-maker's policy on the second, softening malo-lactic fermentation and lees stirring without demur. Chardonnay is also a crucial ingredient in most of the world's best sparkling wine, not just in Champagne, demonstrating its ability to age in bottle even when picked early. And, picked late, it has even been known to produce some creditable sweet wines, notably in the Mâconnais, Romania and New Zealand, from grapes attacked by noble rot... ...Chardonnay's origins are obscure. For long it was thought to be a white mutation of Pinot Noir, and it has often been called Pinot Chardonnay, but Galet cites good ampelographical evidence for Chardonnay's being a variety in its own right. A village in the Mâconnais called Chardonnay has excited various theories, while others speculate that Chardonnay's origins may be Middle Eastern, evincing its long history in the vineyards of Lebanon... ...Few would have believed in 1980, when California had just 18,000 acres/7,200 ha of Chardonnay, that by 1988 the state's total plantings would overtake the (rapidly increasing) French total so that by 1994 California had 66,590 acres. The rate of new plantings reached a peak in 1988, however, and the early 1990s brought a new red wine fashion for California grape-growers to grapple with. Nearly half of all California Chardonnay is concentrated in Sonoma, Napa and Monterrey counties but there are also sizeable plantings further south in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Quality varies, from ambitiously priced wines which are noticeably more consistent and user-friendly than the Burgundian classics to sweet commercial blends, but the archetype remains much the same: glossy, golden wines with a 'kiss of oak'. Chardonnay, now North American for 'white wine', has been embraced with equal fervour throughout the rest of North America, from British Columbia to Long Island, New York. In 1990 it overtook Riesling to become the most planted variety of any hue in Washington State with 2,6000 acres/1,000 ha and it is also popular, if not always desperately successful, in Oregon and Texas. The scale of America's romance with Chardonnay has had a profound effect on the structure of the international cooperage business. Various South American countries have been seeking out cooler spots to imbue their Chardonnay with real concentration. Chile's Casablanca region and Argentina's Tupungato are the most obvious examples, whose best wines combine those New World virtues or accessibility and value. The Australian wine industry's all-important export trade has been centered on its peculiarly exuberant style of Chardonnay. Rich fruit flavours, often disciplined by added acid and flavoured by oak chips, are available at carefully judged prices. Such wine was the strength of demand for Australian Chardonnay in the late 1980s that the area of Chardonnay vines increased more than fivefold during the decade so that in 1990 Chardonnay, with its 4,300 hectares/10,600 acres, became Australia's most planted white wine grape variety (although 1,300 ha was too young to bear fruit). Wines vary from limey essences grown in cooler spots in Victoria and Tasmania to almost syrupy, smokey blends concocted from the hot irrigated vineyards of the interior. The average life expectancy of an Australian (and most other New World) Chardonnays is short. Excerpted from:
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