Chardonnay, the Wine

Chardonnay is the world's most popular White Wine grape, with over 300,000 acres planted, 100,000 in California alone. It’s homeland is the Burgundy region of France, where it produces sublime, complex table Wines (in Champagne and elsewhere it provides the base for many of the world’s best sparkling wines), but it also flourishes in California, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and South Africa.

Chardonnay is a good-yielding variety that buds early in the season and also ripens relatively early, with its thin skin making it susceptible to rot from early rains. The best chardonnays come from cool climates like Burgundy or California’s Carneros District, but the variety also adapts well to warmer regions like Australia. Chardonnay ripens easily and produces medium-to-full-bodied wines with rich apple, citrus, and tropical fruit aromas and flavors. Although it can be vinified as a crisp, fruity quaffing wine, the best, most complex chardonnays, as in Burgundy, are fermented in small oak barrels and put through a secondary, malolactic fermentation, which imparts toasty, buttery characteristics to both the wine’s aroma and flavor.

Chardonnay is not an especially versatile food Wine and is best paired with simply prepared seafood and poultry dishes. (drinkwine)

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