WineLife365

Posts Tagged ‘Chardonnay’

From: Washington
Price: $9.99

Founded more than 25 years ago, today Columbia Crest is one of Washington State’s premier wine producers.  Since the release of its first white varietal wines in 1987 and its first release of red varietal wines in 1988, this Washington State winery has become recognized as the epitome of consistency in the global value wine category.  In the 90’s, Impact magazine named Columbia Crest as one of the “Top Five U.S. Wineries”.  It has also garnered tons of top honors and accolades from other large circulated wine publications like The Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator as being one of the “Best Value Wineries” in the world.  Year after year, Columbia Crest has shown amazing consistency at producing exceptional wines at a price point that most consumers can swallow.

The Columbia Crest “Grand Estates” Chardonnay is, in this case, one of the winery’s stewards of excellence.  In 1997, Wine Spectator magazine ranked the 1995 Estates Series Chardonnay #59 on its “Top 100” list. In 1999, Columbia Crest pleased the judges again at Wine Spectator to earn a spot at #40 on its “Top 100” list with its 1997 Estates Series Chardonnay.  The list of medals and achievements has been endless for both the Chardonnay as well as the Columbia Crest Winery.  In my personal opinion, Columbia Crest is one of the most reliable winery names that shoppers should be looking for when considering to purchase either a red or white wine.

However, with that being said, I will caution you:  There’s a lot to choose from if you decide that you want to try a wine from Columbia Crest for the first time.  You’ve got their first tier, which is called “Two Vines” – this is their least expensive stuff.  Then you’ve got their second tier of juice, called “Grand Estates”, which is the equivalent of saying “$10 bucks of intensity and gusto.”  The next rung will put you into their VIP section with the  Horse Heaven Hills (“H3″) wines that first debuted in 2008.  Finally, their top of the line wine is the high octane brain bender “Reserve” – which is liquid gold.  This is definitely one of those situations where you get exactly what you pay for here.  The “Two Vines” is pretty decent for the price, while the Reserve line-up will rock your world so long as you’re willing to ante up anywhere from $25-40 bills to feel the beat of your brain.

I thought for this tasting experience that I ought to hit the sweet spot of most wine buyers – $10 buckaroos.  I’ve had the Columbia Crest “Grand Estates” line-up of wines more times than counting sheep in my sleep over my wine drinking years, and that includes this very “decorated” Chardonnay for which my beloved sister-in-law and I would drink by the gallons way back in our early days.  I’ll be the first to admit, I’m usually a huge fan of the consumer-friendly “Grand Estates” line-up, however I’ve become particularly sensitive to one very apparent attribute about the “Grand Estates” Chardonnay – it appears to be stuck in its glory days of the ‘90s and early years of 2000 when most of the Chardonnay drinking world liked gnawing on big chunks of oak.  Back then, it was the cool and palatable thing to do.  Fast forward to the present, I can honestly say that not much has changed over the years with this brawny-style American Chardonnay.  All in all, the 2007 Columbia Crest “Grand Estates” Chardonnay just seemed very “dated” to my taste buds.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok, but solid wood just doesn’t cut it for me anymore.  I would personally welcome a design change towards a leaner and crisper modern style.

I award the 2007 Columbia Crest “Grand Estates” Chardonnay 2 Stars out of 4.  It tasted “out of style” to me with it’s over the top oaky flavors.  However, I’m sure that there are still a lot of “woodchucks” out there that would whole-heartedly disagree with me and ask that this recipe be left alone.

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From: Argentina

Price: $8.99

ATTENTION ALL CALIFORINIA CHARDONNAY DRINKERS:  Please place your glass of wine down on the table and step away.

I want to share with you yet another outstanding value white wine from Argentina that you’re probably not paying attention to because it comes from a lesser known place in Argentina called the Calchaqui Valley.  It also contains that unfamiliar native Argentinean white grape known as Torrontes.  However, this Torrontes has a splash of that old familiar favorite in it – Chardonnay! The 2007 Inca white blend consists of 80% Torrontes and 20% Chardonnay.  The splash of Chardonnay is terrific.  It really gives this wine some serious backbone that allows it to hold up to just about any food that you throw at it.  We started drinking this white blend just before dinner.  Our dinner was some Tex-Mex chicken and steak fajitas.  We liked this wine so much that we continued to drink it with dinner, and it held up really well.

The 2007 Inca Torrontes / Chardonnay has an awesome crisp apricot and citrus (think grapefruit) flavor that is light on the “tree bark” (oak in wine geek terms).  This wine is very enjoyable and skillfully blended to near perfection.  And I almost forgot the best part – it can be purchased for less than $10…cha-ching!

This wine is an outstanding value and the Torrontes grape is quickly becoming one of my favorite white wine grapes. 

WineLife365 Rating: 4-Star

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From: California
Price: $11.99

I knew that this day would come – the day that I would have to sit down with King KJ and drink his wine.  Kendall-Jackson is the undisputed King of California Chardonnay.  The folks at Kendall-Jackson have a legion of loyal followers that buy this wine by the gallons and keep them coming back for more year after year.  The highbrowed wine writers also seem to think that King KJ’s Chardonnay is pretty great too…

90 Points – “The 2007…is entirely made from estate fruit. This cuvee seems to get better with each vintage as winemaker Randy Ullom is a virtuoso at producing such high quantity/high quality wine…”
Robert M. Parker Jr., Wine Advocate, December 2008

87 Points – “Made in the familiar style that is K-J Vintner’s Reserve, this Chardonnay shows pineapple, lemondrop, mineral and spice flavors balanced with crisp coastal acidity.”
Steve Heimoff, Wine Enthusiast, February 2009

Wow these guys sound like they really liked the King’s juice.   With great press like this from such highly regarded wine writers and the millions of loyal subjects that line up to buy this wine, it has to taste good, right?

Unfortunately, King KJ is not a good and noble King in my opinion.  He’s very deceitful.  He drowns his loyal followers in high amounts of sugar and oak and then pretends that his wine is bursting with tropical flavors.  Take a sip.  There’s virtually no fruit to be found inside the bottle.  But the integration of oak and sugar are pretty good.  Honestly, it’s truly remarkable what the lab rats at KJ can do with this stuff.  The poor winemakers at KJ are not given a whole lot of fruit to work with.  But what they lack in fruit, they can sure make up for in the lab.  Kudos to them!  I now understand the KJ phenomenon.   It’s sort of like the success of Mountain Dew:  Just one dose of its sugary content and you’re hooked, and then you tell a friend about it.  In the end, I was only able to get down one glass of this concocted Chardonnay.  I give Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay 2 Stars. 

FYI – I do have a half-full leftover bottle for anyone that’s interested.

WineLife365 Rating: 2-Star

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I’ve received a few questions regarding what to eat with particular wines.  I thought that it would be good to start with the world’s king of white wines-Chardonnay.

Here are a few foods to consider having with your Chardonnay:

1. Fish. The “fattier” the fish, the better.  Candidates would be swordfish, salmon, tuna or lobster.  Chardonnay also goes great with crabs, crab cakes, shrimp, oysters… you get the point.    Chardonnay is pretty awesome with seafood.
2. Pasta with Cream sauces.  The red stuff is not so good.
3. Grilled Chicken
4. Roasted Chicken
5. Anything with corn or steamed veggies, vegetarian dishes.
6. Olives
7. These 3 cheeses are great with Chardonnay– Provolone, Gruyere, Mild Cheddar Cheese.
8. Fruits that work well with Chardonnay include: Apples, Pineapples, Honeydew, Mango, Dates, Prunes and Raisins.

My best advice is to not pair Chardonnay with any tomato based dishes.  Unfortunately, Chardonnay and tomatoes just don’t like one another.

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Yuck! What gives with this Chardonnay tasting like I’m biting into the side of an oak tree?  Chardonnay, especially those made in California, tends to make wine lovers wonder this.  Oak is typically added by the winemaker in order to enhance a wine’s natural fruit. Applying it excessively to a grape like Chardonnay can create a heavy-handed wine that becomes so overpowering that you can’t even taste the wine.

It’s the winemaker’s job to skillfully use oak to add creamy texture and spices to the wine.  Why then are many California Chardonnays so oaky and sometimes smelly?  The type of oak used and how much time a wine spends in the barrel really determines how strong of an effect that it will have on the fruit.

American oak barrels are considered to be more “aggressive” than French oak barrels. A main differentiating factor between an American and French oak barrel is the degree to which the inside of the barrel has been charred. The more charred the barrel is, the more the wine tends to be toasty, smoky and vanilla tasting. American oak barrels are typically more charred inside than French oak barrels.

Price per oak barrel also plays a major role when wineries are considering which type of oak barrel to purchase.  New French oak barrels can cost double an American oak barrel.

A low cost technique that a lot of California wineries use in order to make affordable Chardonnay is the use of oak chips.  Oak chips can oak thousands of gallons of wines for the same price as one oak barrel.

So the next time you have a California Chardonnay that smells and tastes like tree bark, it is probably a result of the barrel or chips as well as the time that the wine was oaked.

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