Celebrating Chardonnay

Chardonnay ("shar-doe-nay") is simply the most well-known of the widely planted white wine grapes in the world. Greenish-yellow when ripe, Chardonnay is best-known for white Burgundy and Chablis, and for being the principal grape in Champagne. Chardonnay also gives us some delectable whites in California, Australia and Chile. This is a cool-climate grape that thrives on soils high in chalk, clay or limestone, which is the terrier of the region known as Chablis and the nearby vineyards along the Saone river valley (which flows into the Rhone at Lyon), both in eastern France.

The best Burgundian whites are acknowledged to come from vineyards around Montrachet, in the area known as the Côte de Beaune, part of the Côte-d'Or ("Golden Slopes") of Burgundy (confusing, isn't it?). This is where Grand Crus from labels such as Domaine Leflaive, Joseph Drouhin, Louis Jadot or Domaine Laroche (to mention just a few) sell for upwards of $500 per bottle. This style of Chardonnay has been copied and, in some cases, even surpassed by Californian Chardonnays, a witnessed during the success of Chateau Montelena and Chalone Vineyard's wines in the famous 1976 "Judgement of Paris". However, they have yet to achieve a matching profile or price.

The wines are sublime: dry but luscious, with complex aromas of fruit (lemon, apple, pear, pineapple, peach and fig) and perhaps stuff like butter and vanilla (from the oak), truffles, nuts and mushroom.

Chablis is a medium-bodied wine with high acidity and mineral notes and is generally quite different from the full-bodied Chardonnays of Burgundy. Quality levels vary from Petit Chablis to Premier Cru and Grand Cru, with the last being fairly expensive (upwards of $100 per bottle), with labels such as William Fevre, François Raveneau and Rene Dauvissat being some of the most prominent.

There are also Chardonnays from the more southern Mâconnais area, where the wines are less complicated and expensive - the best-known is called Pouilly-Fuisse ("puYee fussey"), not to be confused with the Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley called Pouilly-Fume.

Then there are California Chardonnays, which, 40 years ago, were produced in imitation of the Burgundian whites and evolved into a big, rich, buttery and oaky style with high alcohol that was quite the rage in the 1980s and '90s. Invariably, this produced a reaction, with critics promoting the ABC ("anything but Chardonnay") creed that espoused returning to a gentler and more elegant wine.

Growing Chardonnay in India is extremely difficult because both the soil and the climate here are very different. Only two companies have been able to produce any Chardonnay at all: Vintage Wines in Maharashtra (Reveilo) and Krsma Estates near Hampi in northern Karnataka. While their Chardonnays are nice, they are as different from French Chardonnays as chalk is to cheese, and the situation is unlikely to change any time soon.

Wines I've been drinking: I quaffed a Domaine Christian Moreau Chablis 2014 (89 points, Rs 3,216 in Bengaluru) at a tasting-cum-dinner held by The Wine Connoisseurs at Olive Beach. I found the wine elegant and dry, with ripe aromas of herbs and pepper, and a juicy, well-balanced taste that lingered.

As they say, viva la France!
Alok Chandra is a Bengaluru-based wine consultant