American , shape of the wood barrels, chips or staves , toast level and length of time in contact with the oak. Diacetyl is byproduct of a process called malolactic fermentation, or MLF. Grapes contain malic acid, which tastes like tart green apples. When a good bacteria called Oenococcus oeni converts that malic acid into lactic acid, either naturally or by a winemaker addition, that green-apple note softens or disappears, while diacety—the buttery note—increases.
Winemakers encourage this conversion to reduce the perception of sharp acidity in favor of the rounder, creamier lactic acid, with notes of, well, butter. This white grape has a long, noble history, which starts with its Old World roots in Burgundy. Some of most coveted, and therefore expensive, Chardonnays in the world come from this region in France. Eventually, the grape made its way to California, where it became the most widely planted white variety in the state.
America fell in love with Chardonnay because it produces a wine that appeals to a wide audience. A winemaker who wants their Chardonnay to taste crisp and bright often uses stainless steel to ferment and store the wine before bottling. When a winemaker seeks to create a fuller-bodied wine with secondary flavors of vanilla and spice, they can ferment and age the wine in oak, or ferment in stainless steel and age in oak afterward.
Oaked Chardonnay often undergoes partial or full MLF while in barrel, as well as sees contact with the lees dead yeast. The vanilla and spice flavors, plus round, creamy texture from micro-oxygenation, lees contact, and MLF produce a wine that is the stylistic opposite of unoaked Chardonnay.
The differences between wines of different regions are largely due to climate and winemaking traditions. Fashionable in the s, Chardonnay has been the butt of jokes for two and a half decades. It has developed a reputation for having strong and unsubtle flavors of oak and butter; a reputation for pairing poorly with food; a reputation for being the sort of thing your mom drinks. IRI, the Chicago-based market research firm, says Chardonnay accounted for about one-fifth of table wine sold through retail channels in the U.
I am fascinated by products like this, where there is a divergence between stated consumer preference you say you think mayonnaise is gross and revealed consumer preference you eat mayonnaise all the time. So, what explains the split on Chardonnay? To figure this out, I conducted my favorite kind of investigative journalism — the kind that involves wine tasting. Made in the tradition of quality Californian winemaking, the grapes we select are juicy, ripe and bursting with flavor.
We cold ferment this easy-to-love Chardonnay to a lush creaminess and age it in our unique blend of oak. Butter brims with stone fruit and baked-lemon notes and has a lovely, long, vanilla finish.
Simply put, it melts in your mouth! And yet, on a trip to Napa earlier this month, I heard very different messaging from other makers of Chardonnay. I should probably mention that I took the trip with my husband, who unabashedly loves a big, buttery, oaky Chardonnay. But such ubiquity took its toll. And in , the retail analyst TNS reported that , fewer Britons had bought chardonnay in the previous 12 months.
Order a glass of dry white wine in a UK bar today and you will probably be served pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc. And though there were The grape itself is a green-skinned blank slate, a neutral that will take on the flavours brought by terroir and oak barrels.
It may taste of marzipan or hazelnuts, butter or liquorice. This in turn led In Pursuit of Balance IPOB , a group of California wineries that came together in concerned that too many US wines — particularly chardonnays — were overripe, over-oaked and excessively alcoholic.
Generally chardonnay is a dry, medium-bodied wine with medium to high acidity. It is a versatile and sturdy grape, which has no doubt contributed to its popularity, as it can thrive just about anywhere wine grapes grow. This is also why there are so many styles of it.
It does best in cooler climates, and when it is grown there, it can make for flinty, minerally, crisp wines, with suggestions of lemon or green apple, nuts or even smoke. In warmer regions it produces more lush flavors, ranging from peach to pineapple, melon and honey. Notice that cream, vanilla or butter did not appear in the flavor descriptions of those climates. Butter happens in the winemaking process.
It is a choice that the winemaker makes, and it is easily avoidable — or attainable — by you, the consumer. So when people say they don't care for chardonnay, I politely suggest that perhaps they don't care for certain styles of chardonnay.
Often they think that chardonnay equals butterscotch. The fact is, only some chardonnay equals butterscotch, and in those cases it is because the winemaker was overzealous with oak.
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