Chardonnay wine is made from a green grape variety that originated in the Burgundy region of eastern France, but now grows in most wine-producing countries from the UK to New Zealand, and everywhere else in- between. Its success is also part of its failure with many wine connoisseurs seeing the wide range of its growth diminishing the wine’s worth by over-exposure.
The grape itself is rather neutral in flavour with much of the wine’s taste coming from the oak barrels it is aged in. It comes in many styles from the crisp wines of Chablis to the New World tropical fruit flavours. Flavours depend mostly on the oak it is stored in, the age of the oak, and if other materials are used in the fermentation process.
Chardonnay is now one of the world’s most popular grapes. You’ll find everything from lean and chalky to rich, creamy and aged in oak, and even some of the world’s finest sparkling wine. A Chardonnay wine tends to be medium to light body with noticeable acidity and traces of green plum, apple, and pear. It’s a popular table choice for its crisp and dry taste.
Indeed, Chardonnay is well-known for its incredible versatility and range of flavours from crisp unoaked temperate climate varieties to full-bodied oak-aged moderate climate versions. This diversity can be attributed to the range of winemaking techniques and climates, soils, and storage containers that the wine is subjected to. Chardonnay flavour and characteristics can vary significantly from region to region also with the New World chardonnay differing from the original regions.
‘Chablis-style’ Chardonnays, tend to offer fragrant notes of green apple, pear, and citrus, with some chalky or mineral-like aromas while “oaked: Chardonnays present a rich aroma of peaches, and lemon, and maybe a hint of vanilla, butter, and the influence of oak, which produces a woody taste. Despite the differences, both chardonnays from grape origin and from the New World tend to share a note of apple and fruitiness, yet with age chardonnay tends to develop a nutty aged aroma.
Chardonnay is used in many sparkling wines around the world, including Champagne in France, and Franciacorta in Italy. Chardonnay’s popularity peaked in the late 1980s, and is still one of the most widely planted grape varieties worldwide, but as mentioned above, the popularity has decreased slightly as scarcity has diminished.
The gape is a highly vigorous vine. Vineyard managers employ aggressive pruning, cropping, and canopy management to contain the rapid growth of the vine. When Chardonnay vines are planted, they’re forced to compete for resources and funnel energy into their grape clusters. In certain conditions, the vines can be very high-yielding, Producers of premium Chardonnay limit yields to less than half this amount. Sparkling wine producers tend not to focus as much on limiting yields, and let the vine grow freely, since concentrated flavours are not as important as the wine’s finesse in sparking variations.
Harvesting time is crucial to winemaking, with the grape rapidly losing acidity as soon as it ripens. The risk of springtime frost damage is mitigated by aggressive pruning just prior to budburst “shocking” the vine and delaying budburst up to two weeks.
