Busting myths round Californian Chardonnay

Just a few months in the past, I used to be requested to answer a reader who requested how you might select Californian Chardonnay particularly from American Chardonnay on the whole, when blind tasting. At its root, the query speaks to a broader understanding, or lack thereof, of the myriad rising situations, terroir and elegance of Chardonnays being made within the geographically monumental and meteorologically, geologically and topographically numerous west coast US state of California. The place is very large, and so are the variations.

‘From my perspective,’ says Chantal Forthun, director of winemaking at Flowers Vineyards & Vineyard within the Sonoma Coast sub-region, ‘the outstanding nature of Chardonnay is its transparency to put and winemaking fashion. Given its thinner skins, Chardonnay purely interprets the character of its website. This makes this selection as multifaceted because the locations from which it originates.’

California Chardonnay is, after all, American Chardonnay. Nonetheless, the wine fashion that was first made within the Eighties, rose to prominence and recognition within the Nineteen Nineties, and may solely be described as ‘buttery’, nonetheless lingers within the minds of wine shoppers, if not now on their palates.

The fashion of wine, which regularly included very ripe fruit with nearly no noticeable acidity, however full malolactic fermentation and ample new oak, resulted in mouth coating, viscous wines of an plain buttery character.

At their worst, they have been flabby, one-dimensional and uninteresting; at their greatest, merely one-dimensional.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for 12 Californian Chardonnays

Chantal Forthun

Defining itself

That development, nonetheless, doesn’t outline Chardonnay as a range or the state it’s grown in. Napa Valley wineries similar to Chateau Montelena, Stony Hill and Smith-Madrone, for instance, have lengthy been thought-about historic among the many valley’s Chardonnay producers, they usually have by no means produced such an on-trend wine.

‘Our choice to accumulate each the Haynes Winery and Stony Hill was on account of our love for the good wines of the Côte de Beaune [in Burgundy]’, says Carlton McCoy MS, CEO of Lawrence Wine Estates. ‘With outdated, low-yielding vineyards, we are able to produce Chardonnay that rivals these wines, however by the lens of those two distinctive Napa websites.’

‘As I watch my friends,’ says Dan Petroski of Napa white wine producer Massican, ‘I’m beginning to see a brand new character of Chardonnay making inroads lately. I don’t wish to simplify it by saying the wines are decrease in alcohol, or simply lighter and brighter, however the truth that Chardonnay has, in its DNA, the depth of flavour and construction (acid) to offer a fancy and noteworthy white wine at 12% to 14% alcohol is what makes this new degree of ripeness and focus.

A historic upstart

In an actual sense, it was Chardonnay that put America, and particularly California, on the wine world’s radar. The 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay sits on the prime of the record of America’s most necessary wines, because of its overcome basic French Chardonnay wines within the celebrated Judgement of Paris tasting in 1976.

The 1973 Montelena was not a wine of nice heritage – removed from it. Montelena is a storied property (relationship to the Eighteen Eighties), however one which had been deserted since 1939, having been forsaken for greater than three many years when the Barrett household took over in 1972. The Montelena property vineyards have been a hodgepodge of vines uncared for because the Nineteen Thirties. In 2014, Montelena disclosed sourcing on the enduring 1973 bottle (as reported on decanter.com, Could 2016).

The Barretts revealed that the Chardonnay fruit for that classic got here from impartial growers: 39% of the grapes from the Belle Terre Winery in Alexander Valley, 35% from the Bacigalupi Winery, Russian River Valley, 23% from the Hanna Winery in Oak Knoll close to Napa and simply 3% from Calistoga. The wine was a mix throughout each Sonoma and Napa appellations, with none clear terroir.

Nonetheless, the winemaker monitored every winery and selected the harvesting dates. The wine was made by the property’s then model new winemaker, Croatian immigrant Mike Grgich (an American wine legend in his personal proper, who died in December 2023, aged 100), in his first full classic at Montelena. Grgich made the ultimate mix in December 1974 and the wine was launched in September 1975.

Regardless of these less-than-ideal circumstances, Grgich crafted an excellent Chardonnay that beat a number of prime Burgundy wines on the 1976 Paris tasting (organised by the late Steven Spurrier, Decanter’s Advisor Editor for a few years), together with a Meursault-Charmes from Roulot, Drouhin’s Beaune Clos des Mouches, a Ramonet-Prudhon Bâtard-Montrachet and Leflaive’s Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Pucelles.

Maybe this exhibits simply how excellent California is for the Burgundian white selection. With lengthy odds, it nonetheless stood above wines of place from pedigreed estates with longstanding traditions.

Ashley Holland of Learn Holland

Coastal cool children

In line with the US NOAA Workplace for Coastal Administration, the California shoreline measures about 5,515km, whereas the overland driving distance between London and Istanbul is available in at 2,500km. So, the notion that the state’s winemaking areas, similar to Napa, Sonoma and the southern coastal area of San Luis Obispo, greater than 400km aside, would make a singular fashion of any wine is, on the face of it, unimaginable.

‘Santa Cruz Mountain Chardonnay is such a Goldilocks,’ says winemaker Ashley Holland of Learn Holland Wines close to Santa Rosa. Amongst all of the wines grown within the area, ‘the Chardonnays actually exhibit that push-and- pull nature of contrasting components that makes a wine so compelling. They’re briny, filled with fruit, vinous and maintain rigidity’.

‘I do imagine nice Chardonnay websites in California have the best-tasting skins,’ Holland continues. ‘So I’m not shy within the press with this wine – I press it onerous and love how that performs out over time with the expression of Peter Martin Ray (see tasting notes, reverse).’

Whereas a lot of California is heat and sunny, different components are topic to the chilly and wildly dynamic affect of the mighty Pacific ocean. Whether or not it’s the North Coast’s Mendocino County and Sonoma Coast, or southern locales like San Luis Obispo or Santa Barbara simply north of Los Angeles, proximity to the Pacific performs a much more important function than latitude.

‘What’s distinctive about San Luis Obispo Coast, particularly Arroyo Grande and Edna Valley,’ says Talley Vineyards’ director of viticulture and winemaking Eric Johnson,‘is that we’re fully dominated by the Pacific, creating an airflow that may be a pure air conditioner for the area.

‘The advantage of this,’ Johnson continues, ‘is that this maritime affect mitigates excessive temperatures, giving us a really lengthy and funky rising season that permits us to supply wines with refined fruit and vibrant acidity.’

Eric Johnson

Napa classics

Whereas the 1973 Montelena was not correctly a Napa Valley-designated wine, basic Chardonnays have been produced from the valley since at the very least 1976, the 12 months of that world- shattering second in Paris. Whereas types developed and certainly grew to become caricatures that California remains to be attempting to depart behind, in Napa – the epicentre of American wine – quite a few older producers by no means bothered to chase style.

From Trefethen and Montelena to the Spring Mountain originals like Stony Hill and Smith-Madrone, the valley’s vanguard Chardonnay producers have lengthy held quick within the face of a butter-riddled craze of Chardonnay that lasted for many years.

‘Stony Hill was considered one of California’s first direct-to-consumer wine gross sales manufacturers, with mailers relationship again to the Nineteen Sixties,’ says Petroski. ‘That vineyard remains to be producing among the most fulfilling, light-weight Chardonnays in California. Impressed by how Stony Hill was capable of seize the hearts and minds of sommeliers, it’s encouraging to see a bigger availability of food-friendly Chardonnays in Napa and Sonoma.’

For Stu Smith of Smith-Madrone, it was Spring Mountain that made their Chardonnay so particular. ‘I selected Spring Mountain deliberately,’ says Smith, ‘as a result of in my view, the very best grapes come from the mountains. Once you depart grapes out too lengthy, the acidity respires out of the grape. California has lived with this “go large or go house” notion for too lengthy, and that’s anathema to how Chardonnay is meant to be made.’

Napa Valley viticulturist Steve Matthiasson sees the way forward for Napa and California Chardonnay in how producers select to farm it. ‘At its greatest, Chardonnay has a rigidity between acidity and texture,’ he says. ‘With the correct soils, clonal picks, farming and harvesting, it’s attainable to supply Chardonnay with lip-smacking brightness and silky size at reasonable alcohol, even right here in sunny California.

‘Ripeness at decrease alcohol comes from natural farming,’ Matthiasson continues, ‘vine-by-vine pruning, cover work and harvest. Equally important are older clonal picks which might be slower-ripening and better in acid. Native yeast barrel fermentation helps reveal complexity that might in any other case want an extended cling time. When Chardonnay is magical, it has weight with out heaviness.’

The Pursehouse dozen: Main lights of California Chardonnay

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