Lumen Spring Summer 2023 - Flipbook - Page 41
Look at moi! It’s Cardy,
but not as we knew it
By Sue Bastian
I have many fond reminiscences of 1980s
Adelaide, and not just because that was
when I came of legal drinking age.
It was fast and flashy. Huge hair, house
brick sized mobile phones, roaring F1
cars, maxi yachts, David Byrne baggy
linen suits, enormous shoulder pads, bulky
computers, and in many instances, even
bigger and bolder (not necessarily beautiful)
Chardonnay (shar-dunnay). TV’s foxy ladies
Kath and Kim would have
been right at home.
This is welcome intelligence, as the 2022
National Vintage Report from Wine
Australia indicates Chardonnay was the
second most crushed wine grape variety
(46.1 per cent of all white grapes crushed)
and had a value of over $200 million at the
weighbridge. Furthermore, Chardonnay has
beaten Shiraz as the number one exported
Australian wine due to growth in the USA
and Canadian markets, and decline in
Shiraz exports to the UK, USA, Denmark,
Sipping Australian
“Cardonnay” back then
was akin to licking a
cricket bat that Dad had
just treated with raw
linseed oil and then rather
peculiarly smeared with
butter.
Now, like 80s Adelaide,
it’s evolved. This versatile
and popular grape has
its origins in Burgundy,
France. It’s made into
a range of styles, suited
for different foods and
occasions globally.
Chardonnay wines
can be lean and nervy as the wines from
Chablis, or fresh commercial styles from
Chile; brilliantly sparkling Blanc de Blancs
from Champagne or Northern Italy’s
Franciacorta; or a voluptuous, creamy, nutty,
fruit salad fermented and/or aged in oak, like
those super-premium wines from Burgundy,
California and Australia.
In Australia, this superb white wine has taken
a while to be debuted in all its complex glory.
It has gone from the buttery, bombastic,
oak bomb; through an undemonstrative,
flinty struck match phase and emerged as a
poised but magnetic wine with pristine fruit,
showcased in a dainty, armoire of oak, slowly
unveiling fruit aromas, spice, toffee and
nut top notes like an expensive parfum, all
wrapped in creamy, ripe French soft cheese
flavours and textures.
sashimi, risotto, salads, paté, and chicken.
But pasta carbonara, crab linguine, pork
ragu on soft parmesan polenta, roast pork,
fennel and apple sauce, truffled scrambled
eggs, grilled mushrooms with anchovies,
tarragon chicken, or pumpkin soup, desire
the bolder, creamy oak styles.
Chardonnay is often called the “winemaker’s wine” (although we know quality
begins in the vineyard), because the winery
is from where many of Chardonnay’s
symbolic nuances stem.
Buttery, caramel notes and
softness from malolactic
fermentation; cheesy,
yeasty notes and creamy
texture from time spent
on yeast lees; flint and
charcuterie savouriness
from barrel ferment and
nutty, tobacco, vanilla notes
from judicious use of oak.
They can be remarkably
alluringly, complex.
The Australian wine sector
is currently facing difficult
operating conditions, but
Australian Chardonnay
looks better than ever.
Germany and New Zealand, the latter of
which also make cracker Chardies.
Chardonnay’s fruit spectrum spans white
and yellow stone fruits, apple, pear, melon,
citrus, pineapple, guava, and mango. This
can be layered with secondary winemaking
characters of honey, vanilla, butter, brioche,
cheese, yoghurt, spices, nuts, toast and oak.
Often textural with a creamy mouthfeel,
they tend to be medium to full bodied,
and excluding those crisper wines coming
from cooler climates like New Zealand,
are naturally moderate in acid. They are
not naturally high in grape tannins but oak
tannin. Reasonable acidity and good fruit
intensity means that some will age up to 10
years and develop bottle age complexity.
Whether you never stopped
loving a good Cardy, or
you were driven away by the butter and
linseed oil cricket bats of the past, perhaps
it’s time to take a leaf out of Kath and Kim’s
book and have another crack at a Cardy.
Gather some vino-loving friends, spend
what you can afford on a bottle of an
Australian leaner, crisper cool climate
style and/or bolder oaked style, make some
complementary cuisine and support the
local wine industry.
Santé!
Our reviewer, Sue Bastian, is Associate
Professor in Oenology and Sensory Studies,
Manager WIC Sensory Laboratory, and
Deputy Head of School, Agriculture, Food and
Wine (International).
These wines are food versatile. The leaner,
unoaked styles marry well with shellfish,
LUMEN – SPRING/SUMMER 2023 41
