Now, if you have been following our website since it’s incarnation, you will
have no doubt noticed that every month we pick one particular grape
variety and profile its characteristics and origins. And if you have really
been a savvy reader, you will have figured out that of all the grape
varieties there are on earth to choose from, the one grape we have no
doubt given the hardest time in our sarcastic opinions has unquestionably
been the Chardonnay grape. It seems in fact that we are group of ABC
fans. Which stands for, “Anything but Chardonnay”.
There has never been a wine variety that has become more homogenized
than the popular old Chardonnay. It is produced in almost every single
wine region in the world and certainly every continent. After tasting quite
a bit of them, it would appear that a great deal of modern Chardonnay wine
producers are afraid to step out the box and produce a Chardonnay wine
that tastes a little different from the norm. Think about it, most American
restaurant goers will order, from the wine list, the house Chardonnay wine
without batting an eye and without any care or concern as to what winery
produced it and what country it comes from. You know I’m right. Do they,
or don’t they taste similar?
Now I’m not saying that there aren’t some really special Chardonnay
wines made in the world today, in fact to be perfectly honest, most of them
are really good and consistently well made wines. I am only stating an
opinion that unlike a wine variety like, say, Sauvignon Blanc, which tastes
dramatically different from country to country and region to region,
Chardonnay wines taste very similar. Most are heavily oaked, so much so,
that you can barely taste the natural fruit flavors that the grape provides.
Because of this very fact, I believe that modern Chardonnay wines are
very poor food wines. They are extremely hard to pair with dinner because
of all the heavy oak shadings that deliberately conflict with the flavors in
dinner entrée’s.
If all of this is true and believe me, I am very opinionated on this particular
subject, then why should you continue to read this article? Well wait, hold
on a minute, I said most Chardonnay wines taste similar and I specifically
used the words, “Modern Chardonnay”. For you see, there is still a place
in the Old World that believes there is much more to churning out wines
that taste like everyone else’s. A place that believes that you ought to be
a great enough winemaker to make the best of what nature gives you in the
vineyard and in the winery (or should I say Domaine). There is a place on
earth where just because the composition of the soil is slightly different and
the amount of sunlight reaching the vines lasts ten minutes longer from one
row of vines to the next, the wines made from those grapes are
dramatically different. It’s a place on earth that believes in a concept that
they call “Terroir” and they believe that they are the only wine region in
the entire world that has all the ideal conditions that go into making the
perfect Chardonnay wine. This place is known to us and indeed the rest of
the world as Burgundy, France and I believe that they are truly onto
something.
I find it somewhat ironic that Burgundy is the birthplace (and I do mean
‘birthplace’, in fact the name of the grape comes from a village in
Burgundy called ‘Chardonnay’) of Chardonnay wine. I say that because,
no’ one else seems to be copying their formula for making great
Chardonnay wines. There is a world of difference between the styles of
Chardonnay wines and if you don’t believe me, try them for yourself. Buy
a Chardonnay from California and one from Burgundy and taste the
difference. You will likely find that the California Chardonnay to be very
well made with boundless waves of vanilla and oak, tropical flavors and a
buttery finish and mouthfeel. Very pleasing to the palate. The Burgundy
Chardonnay will be steely, minerally, acidic, with more apple, pear and lime
notes. As far as wood flavors, they are there, but they play a very intricate
part to the wine and the oak flavors are more complimentary and in the
background rather than the forefront. As these Burgundy wines become
more mature, they gain this beautiful nuttiness and a certain degree of
toast that is extremely hard to describe. You must taste it for yourself.
Another striking difference that you will find is the manner in which they
pair with food. While it is difficult to pair the modern Chardonnay wines to
food, White Burgundy goes with just about anything you can think of and
the best and most hearty White Burgundy wines can even stand up to a big
steak dinner. Try and do that with your favorite white wine! From seafood
and chicken, all the way up to some heartier meat styles, White Burgundy
wines run the gamut of food pairings.
I remember the very first time I had a White Burgundy wine and it was a
really expensive one too. I had walked into a wine store in Dallas that had
a couple of bottles open for the patrons to sample and it just so happens,
they were bottles of fine White Burgundy. Well, I knew enough to know
that I was about to drink Chardonnay, but I was not prepared for the
intensity that my mouth was about to embark upon. I cannot do the
description justice, but I can tell you it was a mouthful of burnt almonds,
toast and overlaid with tart green apples encased in a rich, full-bodied
liquid that exploded on my palate. Like I said, you have to try one for
yourself to understand how great they can be. I guess you could say, from
that day forward, my favorite white wine became White Burgundy.
If you have never been inclined to try a White Burgundy wine, I certainly
don’t blame you. They are not without some glorious faults. For one thing,
they are very expensive. We have become conditioned into believing that
if you are going to pay more than $20.00 for a wine, it better be a red wine.
To compound this problem further is the inconsistency from one White
Burgundy wine to the next. I find this to be both a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, I like the fact that this Domaine (Winery) makes a
Burgundy that tastes entirely different than the one we had last week, but
at the prices you pay for the wines, you want to be sure that what you are
buying is good. That consistency is what drives the Chardonnay wine sales
of Australia and California. The consumer knows and is familiar with the
style of wine they are buying.
Let me explain why Burgundy wines taste so different from one producer
to the next. It really has a lot to do with “Terroir”. In loose translation,
“Terroir” is everything in nature that goes into growing and producing wine
grapes such as, the soil composition, slope of the land, degree of sunshine
on the vines, wind, rain, and average temperature during the growing
season. This is both Burgundy’s biggest winemaking advantage and
downfall at the same time. It is a downfall in that, Burgundy’s weather is
anything but consistent from one year to the next (Vintage). Heavy rains
during harvest can dilute the wines and ruin an entire years hard work in
the vineyards. Too cold a growing season and the grapes never ripen
enough and become higher in acidity than normal. Too hot a growing
season and the grapes have to be picked early and don’t mature enough
producing too little acidity in the grapes. Acidity is a huge key to
Chardonnay wines from Burgundy that I will touch on later. However,
when there is plenty of sunshine at harvest time and the grapes have had
time to ripen to the grower’s optimal level of maturity, White Burgundy
becomes magical, even unbelievably good.
The land and soil in Burgundy varies greatly from one vineyard to the
next. One vineyard may have a slope that faces toward the sun verses one
that faces away from the sun and exposure to the sun is extremely
important to grapes. One vineyard may have more clay in the soil while
the other has more limestone. Even where we live here in Texas, you will
notice the temperature will vary greatly from one town to the next. Next
time you watch the local weather report, take notice to the varying
temperatures around the metroplex. Dallas may be cooler than Addison on
any given day for example. The same is true in Burgundy, France. This is
not to say that other wine growing regions don’t experience these same
phenomenon’s, it’s just that the winemaker in Burgundy believes in rolling
with the punches that nature throws your way. In other wine regions,
winemakers take special care to counter those punches by adding or taking
away components in the wine so that they may achieve the consistency that
they are known for.
In Burgundy, the wine producers are forced to follow strict guidelines as to
what they can and can’t do both in the vineyard and the Domaine. These
laws are know as the Appellation de Origen Controle’e or AOC for short.
If a Domaine intends to put this authentication on their wine label, they
have to follow these rules. In Burgundy, that means letting the natural
yeast strands in the air ferment the grape must rather than relying on man
made or cultivated yeast to get the process started. They also require all
the grapes used in a particular Appellation, like Meursault for example, to
specifically come from vineyards within the Meursault Appellation. No
cheating! This leads to the authenticity and guaranteeing of quality, but it
also leads to another pitfall of the wines of Burgundy. The reliance on
good vintages.
Unlike some wine regions in the world that are blessed with one great
vintage after another, Burgundy vintages (growing seasons) vary greatly
from one year to the next and unfortunately, not all of them are great. You
can for example, taste the same wine made from the same producer in the
same appellation in two back-to-back vintages and swear up and down that
these two wines have absolutely nothing in common. Great vintages are
extremely important to Burgundy Domaines and Producers and they can
make or break how they perform in the market place.
Alas there is yet one more obstacle in enjoying Burgundy wines for us
English speaking consumers and unless we have a vast comprehension of
the French language and carnal knowledge of all these regions within
Burgundy, interpreting the labels on these bottles of Burgundy can become
a daunting task to perform. In Burgundy, as is the case with most Old
World wine producing countries, they do not indicate the grape variety on
the label, but rather the region that this wine comes from. It is up to you,
the consumer, to know that in Puligny-Montrachet, they make Chardonnay
wines. Again, very intimidating to anyone used to grabbing the first
Chardonnay wine they come to in the grocery store. I will go more into
understanding and interpreting these labels on the Interpreting Burgundy
Wine Labels page.
Lastly, there is the issue of price and as I touched on earlier, they can be
very expensive. I understand the logic behind the prices. Burgundy is just
not a very big wine region in terms of acreage and the wines are not
produced in any great abundance. On top of that, the demand for these
wines far exceeds the supply of White Burgundy. If you throw in the fact
that great vintages sell out rapidly and when coming on the heels of a
poorer vintage that may still be on the retail shelves, these prices can help
cover some of the producers losses in poor vintage years. However, when
these consumers shell out big money for wines that are inconsistent in
quality from one producer to the next, frustration can set in.
One such reason for this disparity in quality is a law in Burgundy that was
put into effect back in the days of Napoleon. This law states that when
someone that owns vineyard property dies, the whole of their vineyard land
must be divided up equally among his or her children. That means one
person that may own four acres of vineyards and has four children must
split those vineyards four ways. Now you have four more people growing
grapes instead of just one. Let’s say that one of those children was an
extremely gifted winemaker, well tough, they only get one acre of
vineyards to make wine with. Let’s say another one is good, but cuts
corners to minimize costs, the wines made suffer. The last two could really
care less about the wines made from their vineyards and are out to make a
quick buck. You see where the disparity in quality can come from?
Your safest bet is to find a producer (Negociant), like a Louis Latour or
Louis Jadot for example or a particular Domaine like Drouhin that makes
consistent quality wines that are to your liking and stick with them. I like
to gamble a bit myself and try many from all different producers and
Domaines, but I must confess, I get burned a lot.
White Burgundy is a wine described as having power and finesse. Words
used primarily to describe great red wines, not white. Burgundy is blessed
with a great balance of fruit to counter with just the right amount of acidity,
acidity that gives this white wine the ability to do something most other
white wines only dream about. The ability to improve greatly with age.
Sometimes even over the course of ten to fifteen years. When other white
wines are turning into vinegar, White Burgundy is turning into something
so brilliant and graceful, it is truly a slice of heaven. Don’t be afraid to put
back that Cabernet that you were going to open for dinner tonight with
those filet mignons and open a White Burgundy instead. White Burgundy
wine has no problem standing up to the heartiest of meat dishes or stews.
Don’t over chill your White Burgundy wine, it prefers only a slight chill,
say around 57 degrees Fahrenheit. This is so you can properly enjoy its
bouquet and taste the maximum amount of flavors it has to unveil. If these
traits seem foreign to a white wine, its because they are. You see, White
Burgundy doesn’t know any better, it still believes that it is a red wine!
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