Comfort in a glass to Bridget Joneses everywhere, chardonnay has been a victim of its own success. Think you can't stand any more? Think again

Chardonnay is the most famous vine variety of all. Wine drinkers find it flatteringly easy to enjoy, vine growers find it easy to grow, and winemakers revel in the range of different winemaking techniques to which the grape readily submits: not just a wide range of dry white wines with more weight than most, but delicate sparkling wines and even a few extremely successful sweet white wines made with the benefit of "noble rot".

All over the world, producing chardonnay is a rite of passage in new wine regions, and the grape is nothing if not adaptable. In hot regions, it can produce tropical fruit flavours; in cooler ones, apple-crisp tingle juice which, in less ripe years, can have rapier‑like acidity.


In more temperate climates, chardonnay can yield some of the finest dry white wine in the world - and some very fine fizz, as in the Champagne region. The heartland of Burgundy, the Cote d'Or, is the nerve centre of this style: savoury, dense, the grape a medium through which different vineyards (and winemakers) can communicate their individual styles, often only after many years in bottle. Hazelnuts, liquorice, lemon, smoke, butter, spice are just a few of the many aromas that can develop in these full-bodied wines. Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet, Meursault and Corton-Charlemagne are some of the most famous names.

White Burgundy is made with exasperatingly varied levels of skill, so that one winemaker's Bourgogne Blanc, the most basic appellation, may be better than another's Montrachet, even though it costs a fraction of the price. The name of the producer is often more important than the appellation. The wines of Chablis, one of France's coolest wine regions, have a very particular flavour, reminiscent of wet stones, with some suggestion of very green fruit, but without the strong aroma and lean build of a sauvignon blanc. The Maconnais tends to produce a more new world style of chardonnay: plump, open wines that can taste of melon, or apples warmed by the sun. Chardonnay grown between the Maconnais and the Cote d'Or in the Cote Chalonnaise tends to taste somewhere between the two. Chardonnay's influence has been spreading within France as elsewhere - from the Loire to the Languedoc.

North America

Chardonnay has become synonymous with white wine in California, responsible for an ocean of off-dry, golden, easy‑to-drink liquid. The key to serious quality is climate. Wherever coastal fogs slow down the ripening process and keep yields in check, California can produce some very fine chardonnays, with considerable Burgundian savour but without the old world surliness in youth. The variety is grown almost everywhere in North America where it has half a chance of thriving.


Australia's strong suit is the reliable quality and varied character of its middle-range chardonnays, their fruitiness being increasingly checked by more refined winemaking. Cooler areas can make examples more reminiscent of Cote d'Or wine. Tasmania makes the leanest, while the Adelaide Hills, Yarra Valley and southern vineyards of western Australia can all make top-quality chardonnays, but newer, cooler regions - notably in New South Wales - are being scouted and planted all the time.

New Zealand

Australian producers may envy the high acid levels that their counterparts in New Zealand can hardly avoid, but New Zealanders have become rather blase about their widely planted chardonnay vines. Winemaking standards have been varied, but those prepared to restrain yields and oak influence can produce subtle, sometimes exciting wines. Gisborne chardonnay has long had its followers, but there have been dramatic examples from wineries all over the North and South Islands.


Chardonnay is more widely distributed than any other grape variety - even more widely than its red wine counterpart, cabernet sauvignon, which needs more sunshine to ripen it. South Africa can produce some of the world's best-value chardonnay, its Antarctic influence adding a natural crispness relatively rare in non-European examples. The vineyards of South America have also been invaded by this grape, the most promising examples so far coming from the coolest regions. Casablanca Valley, San Antonio and the odd site in Bio-Bio have made the best wines so far in Chile, while the high-altitude Valle de Uco in Mendoza, Argentina, has shown it can produce very fair copies of California's top chardonnays at a fraction of the price. In the old world, Spain and Portugal have relatively limited plantings. Oaked chardonnays have found huge admirers in Italy, though much of the fruit here is siphoned off for the spumante (sparkling) industry.

Victoria Moore's recommendations

One to drink now

Marks & Spencer Bourgogne Chardonnay 2006, France
£7.99, M&S

Beautifully steady and alive, like sunlight on a late summer's afternoon, this basic-level white Burgundy has had 10 months in French oak and wears it well. Creamy yet refreshing, it drinks well both with and without food.

One to lust after

Cape Chamonix Chardonnay Reserve 2006, South Africa
£13.95, Swig (

One of the most impressive South African whites I've tasted, this is
closely textured, aged in new French oak, and has a nutty, toasty nose. Despite its generosity, there is a Burgundian touch to it - and you'd certainly
struggle to find anything from Burgundy with so much tightly packed flavour at this price.
Victoria Moore

Drink with

The ultimate way to kick off a special occasion is with a glass of blanc de
blancs champagne and plump, freshly shucked oysters served with a squeeze of lemon or, better still, au naturel. If the budget doesn't stretch to France, no problem — there are cheaper sparkling wines from
around the world that will work just as well. As for chardonnay without bubbles, the leaner, more focus ed examples now available are better
suited to food than the "everything but the kitchen sink" wines that put
so many of you off. Piping hot oven aside, a chicken stuffed with lemon,
butter, garlic, salt, pepper and fresh thyme is all you need to create
chardonnay heaven. You need the rich, sweet fruit and spicy oak to match the flavour of the bird, the weight and length to carry the flavour, and the acidity to cut through fat and clean your palate.
Matt Skinner

Champagne is the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after
drinking it

Madame de Pompadour

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