KEY POINTS:
If an 80s-style chardonnay was a vehicle, it would surely be a red sports car. Both are big showy beasts, and both suggest that something may be lacking in other departments.
In the era of bouffant hair and soaring shoulder pads, chardonnays followed a similarly super-sized trajectory. Despite the huge spectrum of styles the variety is capable of producing - from edgy mineral examples to opulent tropically fruited wines - it was the full-bodied, buttery, oaky brutes that muscled their way to dominance in the New World winemaking nations riding its planting boom.
In contrast with the elegance found in chardonnays from the variety's heartland of Burgundy, these Frankenstein's monsters of wines were frequently a fiasco with food and it was difficult to down more than one glass. They eventually led to a backlash against the variety by the ABC brigade. Give them sauvignon blanc, give then pinot gris, give them Anything But Chardonnay.
Poor old chardonnay, with its somewhat nebulous personality, is the most malleable of grape varieties, making it ripe for heavy handed winemakers to exert more of an influence on its final character than the place it was grown. And if everyone's following the same winemaking fashion, the resulting wines can taste remarkably samey. No wonder people got bored.
Chardonnay also saw its image slide downmarket. Once the preferred drop of the more discerning wine drinker, promiscuous plantings throughout the world of this extremely adaptable variety transformed this noble grape into a cheap and cheerful commodity and made it just too common for some trendy folk's tastes.
There may still be plenty of mediocre stuff about, but to write chardonnay off just because it's now being quaffed by the likes of Kath and Kim means missing out on some of the truly exciting examples being made today. Winemakers have paid attention to complaints about the clumsy chardies of yore, resulting in massive revving up of both the quality and diversity of chardonnays now available.
While not wishing to comment on the shortcomings of owners of red sports car, what many retro chardonnays lacked was the freshness and fruit that make the variety so attractive and drinkable and the complexity and finesse that makes the grape great.
To remedy this, more work is being done in the vineyard and less artifice added in the winery as winemakers move away from excessive fruit-stifling oak and the malolactic fermentations responsible for reducing acidity and adding those often overly rich buttery notes. And for those too traumatised by the barrel-loaded styles of the past, there's now a growing array of unadorned unoaked styles.
Handled sensitively, chardonnay can be coaxed to blossom into a distinctive and complex expression of its region or vineyard. In my favourite minerally examples you can just taste the soils coming through in the wines.
Just as the subtler silver has become the most popular colour for today's sports cars, which come in a far wider choice of colours then back in the brash old 80s, modern chardonnays have become far more refined and are again starting to reflect the true diversity of this undervalued variety.
Pure elegance
Domaine Laroche Chablis Saint Martin 2005 $40
Chablis in France's Burgundy region is at the coolest end of chardonnay's growing spectrum and produces the antithesis of those fat oaky examples. This one embodies chablis' classic racy grapefruit acidity and flinty mineral notes, plus a hint of almond and some surprisingly fleshy opulence found in this particular vintage. And, rare for a French wine, it's sealed with a screwcap, which should help conserve all that freshness.
From Glengarry and specialist wine stores.
Kerikeri cracker
Marsden Estate Black Rocks Chardonnay 2006 $35
Awarding this elegant and richly textured entry the Champion Wine of Show title at the recent International Chardonnay Challenge caused considerable surprise because it hails from Kerikeri, a region not well known for its wines, let alone award- winning ones. It's soft, ripe, toasty and seriously stylish.
From New Zealand Winemakers Centre.
Beautiful bubbles
CJ Pask Declaration Methode Traditionelle 1997 $35 While most New Zealand chardonnays don't last as long as their French counterparts, at a decade old this rich, yeasty and stylish chardonnay-dominant sparkler illustrates just how glorious a good aged chardonnay can be in its fizzy form and shows yet another of the variety's many facets.
From www.cjpaskwinery.co.nz
