Face it : whether you love it or hate it , there is no break loose chardonnay . Wedding ? Chardonnay . Airplane ? Chardonnay . Performance evaluation with your teetotaler gaffer ? perhaps not – nope , just kidding . Chardonnay ! Beforeandafter .
Chard often gets a defective pat as a default option , generic clean wine : it blew up in the ' fourscore and ' 90s , expanding yield exponentially and flooding the grocery store with more than a few substandard bottlings / boxing . And while there are still plenty of lousy vino out there , chardonnay is recovering its reputation , one timber - driven bottleful at a time .
But to call Pinot Chardonnay obnubilate is an understatement . To help you demystify your wine drinking – or at least give you something to talk about when you ’re seat next to your friend ’s weirdo auntie at a wedding – here are eight juicy tidbits about the the world ’s favorite wine-colored .
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Its popularity is relatively new
Chardonnay grapes have been made into wine-colored for almost 100 , but the wine ’s mainstream popularity is relatively raw . After a California chard beat a French one in the 1976 Judgment of Paris – tell in the movieBottle Shock– chardonnay became one of the most democratic wine-colored in the existence ( USA ! USA ! ) . The plantings of chardonnay grape just in California quickly increased 1,000 % , with similar emergence internationally . Now , well over 400,000 Accho worldwide are give to grow it . Not bad for a grape that was long conceive the nerd of the wine man .
It’s essential to your bubbly
If you like Champagne , you like chardonnay . Chardonnay is one of the three grapes , along with pinot noir and Pinot grape meunier , used to make the world ’s most amazing sparkling wine-coloured , along with other bounty froth wines like Italy ’s Franciacorta . Champagnes that are 100 % Pinot Chardonnay – calledblanc de blanc , literally meaning white of white – usually overtop higher terms point than others that combine the white chardonnay grapeshot with the glum - skinned Pinot grape varieties : Ruinart , Pierre Gimonnet , and Jacques Lassaigne all offer passably pricedblanc de blancChampagnes that are well deserving the money .
Its mildness allows its flavor to adapt
The natural flavor of chardonnay is mild and simple , some might even say boring . It has a particular ability to take on flavors from its winemaking process , giving winemakers a lot of option when crafting their wine . This is why Pinot Chardonnay is a prime target for fermentation or aging in oak barrels , which importantly amps up the flavor visibility . fundamentally , if wine variety were like X - Men , chardonnay ’s big businessman would be like Rogue ’s : it absorbs whatever flavors it comes in contact with . Which is why it ’s not often aged in gym lockers .
Oak isn’t always present
About that look engrossment : Americans decided to oak chardonnay grape after tasting the gently oak - mature versions from France . We travel a small overboard ( USA ! USA ! ) and start out churning out loggerheaded wines that savour more like butterscotch and piña colada - scented candles than wine-coloured . These days there are plenty of unoaked bottleful on the ledge for those who favor a crisper and clean expression , right next to the coconut cream - scented chards , which are still there , too .
It’s the wine of (unexpected) celebrities
Alanis Morissette once famously sang – unironically – about a black fly in her chardonnay , but she ’s not the only fame with a link to the wine-colored … and we do n’t mean the single who have made appearances on TMZ after a few glasses . luminary from Kurt Russell to NASCAR cracking Jeff Gordon have discharge their own chardonnays . There are even idiot box shows with brand chardonnays , includingDownton Abbey , which is expected , andDuck Dynasty , which … waitress , those guys are n’t just drink in key thinner ?
It’s a pinot offspring
Those who favor pinot noir over chardonnay might be surprised to learn that they ’re close relatives , just like Luke and Leia – though we ’re still unsealed whether Pinot grape ever awkwardly spoon chardonnay to make Han Solo jealous . The origin of chardonnay are obscure , but DNA testing confirm that the Pinot grape vine is one of its parents , along with a Croatian vine named gouais blanc . The first recorded account of chardonnay fare to us from the Cistercian monks from the year 1330 , making it formally older than Hugh Hefner by at least four years .
It can get really expensive
Aside from Chateau d’Yquem – the sweet dessert wine from Bordeaux , a bottleful of which excellently sold for $ 177,000 – the four most expensive bottleful of bloodless wine-colored ever trade were all made from Pinot Chardonnay . Priced between $ 1,000 and $ 6,000 per bottle , these plush release all hailed from the Burgundy realm of France , the birthplace of chardonnay . You do n’t have to be in the 1 % to enjoy wines from this region , though : there are plenty of world - social class exercise ofgrand cru(the fancy Gallic terminal figure for best of the good ) ashen Burgundy on the ledge for $ 50-$100 .
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Downton Abbey Wines
