August 7, 2002

Dunne on Wine: Lighter Approaches Used for Chardonnays
by Mike Dunne - Bee Food Editor

On their way to becoming popular varietal wines, sauvignon blanc and zinfandel went through a rough patch that jeopardized their future altogether.

Remember the head scratching and hair pulling a few decades ago when consumers went shopping for sauvignon blanc or zinfandel and really didn't know what kind of style they were getting until they pulled the cork and splashed some into a glass?

Both wines were made in a dizzying array of styles, from light and bone-dry to heavy, viscous and cloying. Labels provided little help.

Now it will be interesting to see how chardonnay handles this challenge. Up to now, chardonnay producers, especially those in California, more or less have been trying to duplicate one popular style. Chardonnay has had to be big, luscious, complex and manipulated by so many techniques and tools -- malolactic fermentation, barrel fermentation, long-term aging in new oak, the intentional retaining of residual sugar and so forth -- that many came off tasting more like some sort of lugubrious, alcoholic, buttery, candied, flabby Dr. Frankenstein than a fresh, snappy and refreshing member of the sunny fruit family. Which one are you going to want sitting beside you at the dinner table?

More consumers look to be asking themselves that question, and their answer helps account for a tentative but encouraging rise of interest in such varietals as sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio, viognier and even riesling.

For chardonnay growers and winemakers, this consumer disenchantment couldn't come at a worse time. At 93,316 bearing acres, nearly double the total of 10 years ago, chardonnay is California's most extensively planted wine grape.

As a consequence, more chardonnay producers are abandoning the blockbuster model of the past couple of decades and are streamlining their chardonnays to put more emphasis on lean structure, bright fruit and crisp acidity; in short, more chardonnays are arriving in the marketplace more suitable for dinner tables than carnival midways as vintners try to carve out a fresh and appealing niche for the varietal.

The challenge to curious consumers burned out on heavily timbered chardonnays is to find examples in this lighter and more-vivid style. Labels can provide some clues. "Unoaked," "unwooded," "naked" and "virgin" are showing up on chardonnay labels as a sign the wine is free of the vanillin sweetness of oak. Alcohol levels of less than 14 percent indicate the wine shouldn't taste offensively hot. If the back label is written in enological jargon, acidity above 0.5 percent, a pH at about 3.5 and residual sugar no more than 0.3 percent all indicate the wine likely will be dry, fruity and tangy -- a chardonnay more refreshing than the reigning ponderous style.

Here are some chardonnays that represent a fresh, bright and vivacious style of the varietal:

* Stony Hill Napa Valley 1999 Chardonnay ($27): For 47 straight vintages, the Peter McCrea family of St. Helena and their winemaker, Mike Chelini, have stuck to a style of chardonnay that is the benchmark for the variety at its most refined: minerally, citric, lean and dry, a chardonnay stripped down to a wine that expresses the beauty of a choice vineyard lovingly tended.

* Sierra Vista Vineyards & Winery 2001 California "Unoaked" Chardonnay ($12): Winemaker John MacCready introduced his unoaked chardonnay two vintages ago, and it's become so popular so fast he's had to look beyond his home base in El Dorado County for more fruit. Thus, the 2001 version of the wine bears a California rather than El Dorado appellation. But the wine's pleasant, clean, unfettered fruit and spice remain, though this take is a bit softer than previous vintages.

* Smith-Madrone Winery Napa Valley 1999 Chardonnay ($25): Brothers Stuart and Charles Smith apply all the standard bells and whistles of California winemaking to their chardonnay, including barrel fermentation. But in doing so they use a light hand, thereby producing a chardonnay that while full-bodied and mouth-filling also is refreshing with its tangy lemon and apple fruitiness. It's just blazing through the wine competition circuit, picking up four gold medals and three silvers so far this year.

* St. Supery Vineyards & Winery 1999 Napa Valley Chardonnay ($18): "A complete, almost perfect chardonnay," say my notes from the Los Angeles County Fair, where our panel voted it best of class. I'm not sure why I put in that "almost," given that the rest of my notes are nothing but positive: true and vibrant chardonnay flavors, with suggestions of citrus and melon, smoothness and balance, and a lingering but light toastiness. It's another chardonnay that hasn't gotten away from such techniques as malolactic fermentation and oak aging, but they're used judiciously.

* Meridian Vineyards 1999 Edna Valley Reserve Chardonnay ($14): With this chardonnay, just going into distribution, founding winemaker Chuck Ortman and incumbent winemaker Signe Zoller reinforce Meridian's reputation for high value in chardonnay of unusual complexity, richness and balance. Another gold-medalist at the Los Angeles County Fair, the 1999 has an unusual green tone, a burst of pollen in the nose and all the fingerprints of barrel fermentation, oak aging and so forth, but they're light fingerprints.