Chardonnay

Identity

Chardonnay is one of the two most planted white varieties in the world, alongside Airén, and the most misread. It gets called "neutral" as though that were a failing; in fact it is the definition. It imposes no single aromatic marker — unlike Sauvignon Blanc with its thiols, or Gewurztraminer with its terpenes — and that makes it the finest recording device in the corpus: a site, a picking date, a fermentation or ageing decision all show through in plain sight.

It is easy to grow, early and reliable. The fruit is thin-skinned and prone to grey rot, in small, tight, unusually uniform bunches whose juice carries almost no free aroma. Everything Chardonnay eventually smells of, it owes to ripeness, yeast, lees and wood — or to their deliberate absence.

History and origin

Chardonnay is Burgundian, and its birth is dated with a precision rare in ampelography. It arose from a spontaneous cross between Pinot and Gouais Blanc, two varieties everywhere in medieval north-eastern France: the first reserved for nobility and clergy, the second planted anywhere, productive, tart and looked down on. A shared hedgerow did the rest.

The cross was demonstrated in 1999 by Bowers and colleagues in Science, through microsatellite analysis of more than three hundred cultivars: sixteen varieties of north-eastern France carried genotypes consistent with descent from that single pair. Chardonnay's siblings, then, are Gamay Noir, Aligoté, Melon de Bourgogne and Auxerrois.

One honest qualification. Both the paper and the VIVC (no. 2455, pedigree confirmed by markers) name "Pinot", the cultivar group, rather than Pinot Noir specifically — Pinot Noir, Gris and Blanc share the same microsatellite genotype, colour being only a somatic mutation. This profile points at Pinot Noir as that group's representative, which is standard usage, but it is not a distinction the markers could settle.

In the vineyard

Chardonnay buds early, one day before Chasselas, and ripens early, in the first period, about a week and a half after it. That early budbreak is its chief exposure: the spring frosts of Chablis are the chronic illustration.

It is susceptible to powdery mildew and expresses grapevine yellows strongly; grey rot threatens at ripening wherever vigour runs high. It is, on the other hand, less exposed to downy mildew than many whites. Millerandage is common, cutting yield but concentrating what remains — a trade the growers of the Côte de Beaune do not always regret.

It prefers moderately fertile soils dominated by limestone or marl: the Kimmeridgian marls of Chablis, the chalk of the Côte des Blancs, the Middle and Upper Jurassic limestones and marls of Meursault and Puligny. In Mediterranean conditions, severe drought costs it both acidity and definition.

In the glass

The span here is the widest in the corpus, because style weighs as much as site.

In taut, unoaked versions the nose is lemon, green apple, hawthorn and linden, with the struck-match trait of gunflint associated with limestone Chardonnay — a note whose origin is chemical, carried by sulphur-bearing thiols, rather than mineral in any literal sense. As ripeness climbs — Meursault, the Mâconnais, temperate New World sites — white peach settles in.

Winemaking adds a second layer. Malolactic fermentation releases diacetyl: that is the butter, absent from styles that deliberately block it to preserve freshness — some Mâconnais, New World or sparkling base-wine producers — but not from Chablis, where malolactic is close to universal even though diacetyl rarely dominates there. Lees ageing gives brioche, taken to its extreme by the long autolysis of Champagne. New oak contributes vanilla — a marker of style, never of variety.

On the palate, acidity runs from 5 in a Champagne base wine or an early-picked, cool-climate Chardonnay (Chablis in a cold vintage, the Aube, the Côte des Blancs) to 2 in a warm-climate white, fully malolactic and lees-rich. Tannin sits at 1, except where long barrel-lees ageing leaves a phenolic grip. Body and alcohol cover the whole scale, from a lean Petit Chablis to a ripe Meursault.

Age leads to hazelnut, honey and quince — the register of great Côte de Beaune whites at eight to twelve years.

Great terroirs

Burgundy is both cradle and benchmark. Chablis gives the most upright version, on Kimmeridgian marl and without new wood: malolactic there is close to universal, and the wine's tension comes from the site — cool climate, Kimmeridgian marl, early picking — rather than from a blocked fermentation. The Côte de Beaune — Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet, Corton-Charlemagne — gives the barrel-fermented, barrel-aged version, broad and long. The Mâconnais gives the sunny, approachable one.

Champagne makes it the grape of the Côte des Blancs and of blanc de blancs. The extreme acidity of Champenois fruit, unbearable in a still wine, becomes the frame of a sparkling wine able to age for decades on lees.

In the Loire Valley its presence is secondary but real: one of the white grapes of Crémant de Loire, also planted in Touraine and the Haut-Poitou.

Beyond France, California (Sonoma Coast, Santa Barbara), Australia (Margaret River, the Yarra, the Adelaide Hills), New Zealand, Chile and South Africa now produce mature versions, well back from the oak excesses of the 1990s.

Commonly confused with

Blind, unoaked Chardonnay is readily taken for dry Chenin Blanc: the same apple, the same high acidity. Chenin brings a waxy, chamomile note and a bitter finish Chardonnay does not have.

With barrel-aged Sémillon the confusion is genuine, especially among the whites of Pessac-Léognan; Sémillon is waxier, more lanolin, less citric.

A very ripe Chardonnay can pass for Viognier or Marsanne; acidity settles it, always higher in the Chardonnay.

The real trap, though, is within the variety: recognising Chardonnay is often easier than telling a Chablis from an oaked Sancerre, or a Meursault from a cool-climate Australian Chardonnay.