Wine & Words

It happens fairly often. A couple sits down to eat at Back Bay Cafe and Sharion asks if they'd like "the Wine Guy" to help them with their wine selection. The woman says, "I'll just have a glass of Chardonnay" and the man says "I'll have the house Cab."
"Chardonnay" is the white "wine" Americans are most familiar with, while "Cab" is the most commonly known red. I use quotation marks with the word "wine" in the preceding sentence because Chardonnay is not a "wine"...it's a grape, the most widely planted white wine grape on the planet. That's not because it's the "best" grape for making white wines; it's because the Chardonnay grape is tough, adaptable to different soil and climate conditions and relatively easy to grow. But that very adaptability means that it can be made into a wide variety of wine styles. This week, so you can experience this adaptability (and not just Chardonnay's ubiquity), we're going to Feature Chardonnays from different regions and regional styles.
Decker Chardonnay 2004 (Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California)
We don't have a lot of this 2004 Decker left, and we won't be able to get any more Decker wines, but I wanted to Feature it because it shows how California Chard can be classy and well-balanced instead of flabby and loaded with oak.  This style also ages well, and this 4 year old wine shows a richness and mellowness that its younger counterparts can't pull off.
Wente Morning Fog Chardonnay 2006 (Livermore Valley, San Francisco Bay)

Here's what's become my "go to" mid-priced California Chard.  The Livermore Valley is one of those that runs east-west and brings cooling ocean fogs up to its hillsides.  This climate, plus the characteristic hillside soil, give the Chardonnay grape some great notes of apple and pear, as well as a minerality that serves as a base for the other flavors.  One of the things that makes the Wente Morning Fog interesting is that the winemakers have added 2.4% Pinot Blanc and 2.6% Gewürztraminer to the predominantly Chardonnay wine.  The Pinot Blanc adds a light crisp note, and the Gewurtz gives some floral notes.  The odd percentages are a tip-off that this blend was put together with precision and a discriminating palate.  This is a very nice bottle of wine for the price.
Cave Talmard Macon-Montbellet 2005 (Maconnais, Burgundy, France)

This is one of my favorite styles of white wine to pair with dinner.  And it's hands down my favorite style of Chardonnay.  "White Burgundy" is the style of Chardonnay wine that is the world bench mark.  It's the mark California winemakers were aiming for in the famous "Judgment of Paris" of 1976 when they took on the French winemaking establishment (and won - an event charmingly portrayed in the recent movie "Bottle Shock"). 
Recently I've started giving a stripped down lesson in what I think constitutes a good wine.  I talk about Complexity, Balance and Finish.  Complexity is the experience of layers of flavor, one after the other, something to pay thoughtful attention to as you taste the wine.  Some cheap wines are just "one liners," no thought required, nothing much going on, just an alcohol delivery vehicle.  Balance is that all the elements - acidity, fruitiness, oak, richness - are each present in the appropriate amount.  It's like a musical chord where all the notes are in tune, creating a harmony that leads to a great Finish.  Finish is like the sustained vibrations of a big piano chord struck well.  The taste of the wine lingers in your mouth for a long, pleasant time.  Well, white Burgundy wines, well made, have Complexity, Balance and Finish.  This one from the stellar vintage of 2005 certainly does.  Get it while you can, though.  The 2008 vintage is now arriving, and it's proving to be just as interesting as 2005.
Domaine Pascal-Renaud Macon-Villages 2008 (Maconnais, Burgundy, France)

And speaking of 2008...here it is!  It's brighter than the mellowed 2005, with a hit of crisp acidity that makes it pair well with food, especially fish and shellfish.  It's a "Macon-Villages," meaning the grapes came from various "villages" in the Macon region (rather than the one, Montbellet, of the wine above).  That means it's a little less expensive and has a little less of the Complexity, Balance and Finish I alluded to above.  Still, at this price, it's a very classy dinner companion.
Turner & Cole Unoaked Chardonnay Lot 3 2007 (Strathbogie Ranges, Victoria, Australia)

I've saved the best for last.  This is another style of Chardonnay I like...fresh, unoaked, rich from malolactic fermentation.  This wine, made for the house label of our friends at Turner Wine Imports, recently won a Gold Medal at the Beaufort Wine Festival.  It's scrumptious!
But wait, did I lose you on "malolactic fermentation"?  Usually I don't use technical winemaking terms when I'm describing wines, but this is one that's particularly important when you're looking at different styles of Chardonnay.  It's a simple chemistry thing.  Fresh Chardonnay grapes have a lot of malic acid in them.  You linguists in the group will recognize the root of malic as malum, Latin for apple.  It's the crisp acidity of a fresh green apple.  Now sometimes that's a little too tart in a wine, so the winemaker does a second fermentation that turns the malic acid into lactic acid - malolactic fermentation.  Lactic acid is found in milk and cream and butter.  Mmmm...a nice note in a crisp white wine.
This unoaked Chardonnay is typical of the Australian style, where they rely on ripe fruit rather than the butterscotch notes of oak.  Bottled with a screw cap, it's easy to get to the "cheers" part.
So those are the Chardonnays we'll taste and Feature for the next couple of weeks.  In the next installment - the big red wines of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape.