Perfect Pairings. Evan Goldstein

       CHARDONNAY

      Chardonnay (shar-doh-nay) is the darling of white wines to American palates. This grape and its wines are fashionable for many reasons: the name is easy to pronounce, and the wine is readily accessible stylistically, gussied up with lots of delicious and enticing oak. Whatever the reason, Chardonnay is the most popular white wine in the United States, and it is enjoyed and admired globally.

       WINE-GROWING AREAS

      Although Chardonnay is thought by some wine experts to have its roots in Persia, most of us associate it (correctly) with France, and specifically with the globally respected Côte de Beaune, the southern portion of Burgundy's celebrated Côte d'Or. Chardonnay is, in winespeak, an older grape with an ancestry that is in part noble (the Burgundian Pinot family of grapes) and in part plebeian (its Pinot ancestry having been conjoined long ago with the unremarkable Gouais Blanc grape originating in central Europe). Once established in the Côte d'Or, however, the wines from such heralded appellations as Montrachet, Meursault, and Corton Charlemagne became benchmarks. Long-lived and infinitely complex when well made, great white Burgundies (almost all of them Chardonnays) are mosaics of mineral-scented earth, ripe citrus and tree fruit (apples and pears), and an intricacy of spice, toast, and varying levels of butter or butterscotch from the small oak barrels (barriques) in which they are aged. Additionally, the less oaky (or unoaked), more earth-driven styles of Chablis to the north and the Chardonnays of the Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais to the south present other interpretations, which are often excellent values. Wines coming from the Loire Valley and other parts of France, such as the Ardèche, don't have the depth or complexity of their Burgundian cousins, but have the same unique terroir-driven palate and a similar quality of ripe but tart fruit. Finally, in the Champagne region, Chardonnay (especially from the CÛte des Blancs) provides the sharp fruit and lemony backbone of many cuvées and is also used in making sparkling wine. Chardonnay is also used in the Burgundy region's interpretation of sparkling wine: the local Crémant de Bourgogne is both affordable and delicious. For the rest of the world, it's indeed the two French regions—Burgundy for still wines and Champagne for sparkling wines—that have supplied the road map.

      Chardonnay is grown in the northeast of Italy (in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, among other regions), where clean and refreshing wines are styled much like the local Pinot Grigio: light, pure, and crisp. In Italy, as everywhere, there are examples of wines that are Burgundy-style, and these are most often found in Tuscany. Many other European countries have their own versions of Chardonnay. Those from Germany's Pfalz, Austria's Styria, and Spain's Navarra are among the most successful, displaying ample weight and aromatics and employing varying levels of oak. Cava, the appellation of the workhorse sparkling wine from Spain's Catalonia, has since the mid-1990s permitted the use of Chardonnay in its méthode traditionnelle wines, which were historically blended only from local grapes such as Xarel-lo and Viura, and the results have been very good.

      Australia is producing some of the finest Chardonnay anywhere, ranging from the rich, oak-laden styles of the Hunter Valley to the crisper, tree-fruit-nuanced examples of the Clare Valley. Australia was once known for the same overdone, overoaked interpretations that plagued California early on, but Australian winemakers have, over the past two decades, blown that provincial approach out of the water. Instead of the old Chateau Two-by-Fours, world-class efforts are being vinified in microclimates as widespread as Western Australia's Margaret River, the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, and the island of Tasmania, where Chardonnay is used for both still and sparkling wines. Complex stone fruit, tree fruit, and citrus flavors, rich, waxy textures, and a deft use of oak identify Australia's best bottlings today. Look for the tropical-scented wines of New Zealand's Gisborne region and the Auckland area (Kumeu-Huapai), as well as South Africa's Stellenbosch and Paarl—countries and regions considered young and emerging stars in Chardonnay whose wines are getting better with each vintage.

      The Americas, both north and south, are avid players in the Chardonnay arena. A sound majority of the fifty U.S. states bottle Chardonnay. While, in my opinion, the best of the breed still come from California (the Carneros vineyards of Napa and Sonoma, Sonoma's Russian River, Santa Ynez's Santa Rita Hills, and Mendocino's Anderson Valley, among other areas), formidable wines are being made in unexpected states, including New York, Virginia, Maryland, and even Texas. American wines have, like their Australian counterparts, benefited from the discovery of cooler microclimates within the regions where Chardonnay has traditionally flourished. The range of styles is immense: Carneros Chardonnays exhibit a green-apple and lemon personality with bright acidity, while those that come from Santa Barbara exhibit tropical pineapple and guava flavors with secondary notes of peach and pear, and the Russian River Valley wines are waxy and lush with a note of dense melon and apple fruit. Continuing up the Pacific coast, Oregon and Washington's best Chardonnays are distinct, with slightly less body but great structure, as you might expect at more northerly latitudes, and some of the recent examples of British Columbia's best Okanagan Valley Chardonnays show promise.

      Chardonnays from Chile and Argentina as a general rule display personality traits somewhere between those of California and those of northern Italy, with the best examples rivaling the Burgundy-style