#124 Chardonnay: Every Which Way

We are tasting Chardonnays: Warm and Cool Climates, Oaked and Unoaked

For the fourth session in this season’s Winter Wine Explorations, we start by training our guests’ palates on Chardonnays from warm and cool climates; some with, and some without, any use of oak. Then we are asking our guests to blind-taste four different Chardonnays, each with a different combination of climate and oak. It *should* be easy to tell them apart.

In 2019, we sat down with our wine distributor in New York City to get their views on coming trends in the wine industry. Since they sell were selling wine in the largest wine market in the world, we thought they might have a point-of-view that could help us plan our own production schedule.

“Unoaked Chardonnay” they said, would become more popular.

Back in the 1990’s, I remember the owner of the wine shop I visited repeating the phrase, “A-B-C.” That stood for “Anything But Chardonnay.” At the time (and to this day) Chardonnay is the world’s most popular white wine. In the 1980’s 1990’s, oaky, buttery Chardonnay had become so popular that the majority of the professionals in the wine trade had reached their limit. Anything. But. Chardonnay.

So I wasn’t expecting our distributor to say Chardonnay was on the rebound, particularly, unoaked Chardonnay. It wasn’t a style of wine that I had paid a lot of attention to.

The distributor said it would be a “Chablis-style” of Chardonnay that would take-off. This distributor carried several wines from the Chablis region of France, which is known for its unoaked, or lightly-oaked styles of Chardonnay. Chablis is also located in a cooler region of France, at the same latitude as the Loire Valley, where Cab Franc thrives (as it does in the Finger Lakes).

We asked our distributor to provide us with some of the most highly-regarded examples of Chablis wines from their portfolio. We sat down with our winemakers, Ben Stamp and Chris Stamp (see Substack #117) and tasted through the samples from Chablis. The goal was to try to identify a style that we felt we could emulate.

Our first vintage was in 2021. The 2022 vintage was a very hot and dry year, and the Chardonnay grapes came in very ripe, with loads of flavor. We are pouring the 2023 vintage now. Then, for the 2024 vintage, Ben recommended that we try a different yeast. We are still tweaking our process, and it may take several years.

In our first year, back in 2011, Peter Bell of Fox Run Vineyards was our winemaker, and he had a very strong affinity for making Chardonnay in the Finger Lakes.

Winemaker Peter Bell, about to taste some wine, advised that it was important not to remove leaves that shaded the Chardonnay grapes. Too much sunlight, he believed, caused the sugar content to reach a high level before the rest of the phenolic composition of the grapes reached physiological ripeness. The practice of early leaf removal to promote ripeness in Cab Franc, was not advisable when it comes to Chardonnay, Peter said.

Peter was an advocate for a more austere, angular styles of wine, both of Chardonnay and of Riesling. We were not of that mind at the time, but our thinking has evolved in Peter’s direction. Today, our unoaked Chardonnay is very much in an austere style. And, for the record, we are now we also plan to make a Riesling in that angular style every year. That is our #90 Extra Dry Riesling.

In the line-up of Chardonnays for this weekend’s Winter Wine Exploration, we have a wide range of styles. Chardonnay, both oaked and unoaked, from warm and cool climates. We will report on the consensus reactions of our guests next week.