Chardonnay Wine 101

Chardonnay is rated as the most popular white wine on the world. If you decide to visit any wine region in the planet, you will find at least one vineyard growing Chardonnay.

Chardonnay is a wine that can be simple or complex, aged for years or ready to be consumed. Now you may be asking yourself: But how did it become so popular and why it has gotten a kind of bad reputation recently?

Chardonnay is a wine originated from Burgundy, a region of France. There it's known as 'White Burgundy'. And was there where Chardonnay gained great reputation for its elegance.

Soon after Chardonnay gained increased popularity in Burgundy, winemakers in Champagne – another region of France - start to grow the grape varietal as well, using it as the main ingredient for their sparkling wines. But while grown in the same country, the grape took on very different characteristic in both places. Simple said, no two places that grow Chardonnay grapes produce the exact same wine – yet all regions finds it is pretty easy to grow. This fact is actually what contributed for the grape to quickly spread across the world.

As the grape reached other places, winemakers found out that warm climates could lead a Chardonnay grape that was ripe and loaded with tropical flavours, while cooler climates could lead grapes with apple flavours and earthy fall aromas including mushrooms and the smell of fallen leaves. That variety of different Chardonnay that can be grown around the world, mean that wine drinkers literally have a Chardonnay for every season and occasion.

But even with all this versatility, Chardonnay has been getting a bad reputation in the last years. The reason? We can say oak. Aside of winemakers discovering how adaptive the grape was to different wine regions, they also found that is was fabulously responsive to oak age. A bit of oak in Chardonnay is a very good thing as it allows the luscious mouthfeel all expect in a Chardonnay produced in Burgundy and a hit of vanilla. The problem is, when the wine is exposed to oak more than necessary, bad things do happen.

During the 80's and 90's, winemakers (especially the mass market ones) started using oak like crazy. Taking into consideration what they though 'people appreciation for oak', they begun to over-oaked the Chardonnay wines, that literally start to taste like melted butter liquid in a bottle. That caused many wine enthusiasts to start avoid and even say that they hated Chardonnay. However that should not be like that.

That practice of over-oaking Chardonnay wines has pretty much stopped everywhere. But still, to avoid the melted butter liquid, just avoid buying Chardonnay that is made by mega-producers, who basically sell their stuff for under $10 a bottle.

Source: http://www.wineonline.com.au/white-wine/chardonnay/