Spring ahead to chardonnay

By Madeleine Ahlquist
Worcester Magazine
May 2006

With the weather warming and the flowers blooming, I find nothing more satisfying than a glass of good chardonnay. California produces more than 1,000 different chardonnays, ranging from not-so-good to outstanding. It’s all a matter of your preference, but I can describe for you some characteristics of the chardonnay profile I prefer.

In great chardonnays, you can taste ripe, full-bodied fruit such as peaches, pears, yellow apple, pineapple or apricots. Just the right citrusy acid gives the wine perfect balance. Also, an almost custard texture is perceived. Can all those things really be experienced in a glass of wine? Yes, and a good chardonnay which thrives in a cool growing climate will reward you time and again.

Simply put, wines are described as full-bodied when they carry a certain weight in the mouth. We teach our wine students to understand this concept of body by comparing the experience to the range of sensations you perceive between skimmed milk to heavy cream. When you drink skimmed milk, you notice that the liquid in the mouth feels light. This is true of a light-bodied wine. On the other end of the scale, if you were to take a taste of heavy cream, the liquid has the feel of considerably more weight in the mouth. So too, a full-bodied wine has a heavier touch. It’s really that simple.

Even though there is flood of chardonnay produced each year, it isn’t — in all fairness — that easy to produce. In the mid-1980s, the dreaded disease Phylloxera stunned growers who were faced with replanting entire vineyards in the Napa Valley. The silver lining in this black cloud was that for the first time, growers had the opportunity to choose varieties and grape clones that were better-suited to their vineyards. The new chardonnay plantings have shown themselves to be more distinguished and of wonderful quality.

Today the best chardonnays come from a variety of mountainous, cool California areas, including Carneros, Santa Barbara and Mendocino. The exciting chardonnay news is coming from the growing region of Sonoma Coast north of Napa and the Russian River Valley in the northern part of Sonoma. If you are contemplating a bottle of chardonnay from these regions, you will not be disappointed, especially if you are choosing from the great 2003 bottles and the even more delicious 2004 vintages.

If you’re game to try, these are some of the top and notable chardonnay producers for you to enjoy: Arrowood, Beringer, Chalone, Chalk Hill, Ferrari-Carano, MacRostie, Morgan, Newton, Pine Ridge, Saintsbury, Shafer and Talbott. Also, the 2004 chardonnay produced by the Antinori family from Italy is a wonderful discovery.

Madeleine Ahlquist is co-owner of The One Eleven Chop House and The Sole Proprietor in Worcester, both of which are frequent winners of Wine Spectator's "Award of Excellence."