Today the tables are turned. The voluptuous whites now come from California. We've upstaged the French in every way except elegance, balance, and refinement. We've created a monster of a white wine which has influenced the way Chardonnay is made throughout the world, even in Burgundy.
California winemakers have developed a style of Chardonnay which resonates with market dynamics and fulfils all demands for richness, texture, and complexity - those characteristics which had previously typified white Burgundy. But our Chardonnays never tasted much like white Burgundy. We were forced to approach the Chardonnay ideal from an opposite set of conditions. Where the French needed a minor miracle to achieve adequate alcohol levels, we needed to find a way of holding them down to acceptable levels. French fruit rarely ripened, despite long hang times; ours ripened too fast, forcing us to plant our Chardonnay vineyards in cool coastal valleys.
California Chardonnay is quite possibly the world's most popular white wine. But how does it stack up with white Burgundy? Indeed, how do the various California producers stack up against each other? What do you have to pay for a really good California Chardonnay?
In 1995 the Wine Spectator determined that California Chardonnay and French white Burgundy were a toss up; different, but equal. The highest mark in a blind tasting of 400 of the world's best Chardonnays went to a little known Central Coast producer, The Gainey Vineyard, who asked $25 for the bottle. Next in line was a French Chardonnay retailing for several hundred dollars. The Beverage Testing Institute concurred and declared the Gainey Chardonnay to be the best of that vintage. In 1996 the nod went to Beringer Sbragia and Gainey had fallen from grace.
What's up here? How is it that in one year a winery can walk away with "best in the world" and the next year not even place? Here's my view: California Chardonnay has become an art. It's a wine where vinification and cellaring play a huge role, and California winemakers have the act down pat. Any winemaker who can't make a fabulous wine from good Chardonnay fruit, given the budget, will soon be out of work. And don't think for a minute that great Chardonnay has to be a hands-on, low production product. In 1994 Beringer Private Reserve was declared "wine of the year" by the Spectator and you could find it in almost every wine store in the country.
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