Is there Life after Chardonnay?

(AWM - Juni 2002) - Human beings are by nature creatures of habit - perhaps a carry-over from primitive survival instincts. Always safer to go with what, where and whom you know. I am just wondering whether that habit is the reason that when it comes to white wine choice, it is almost predictable 95 times out of 100 that the choice will be a chardonnay wine, again 95 times out of 100 it will be a white burgundy. Text by N.K. Yong (Beaune) Undoubtedly the butteriness, nutty (read oaky!) and "fatness" of chardonnay make for an attractive and easy drinkability, which saves us from having to work at it. I am not knocking in the least the great white burgundies from the Cote d'Or - I love them as much as anyone else. But there so many other equally if not more interesting white wines in the world it seems a great shame and a disservice to the wine makers if no one bothers to give them the spotlight now and again. Which is exactly what the Austrian Wine Marketing Service and Dr Jan-Erik Paulson, some-time dental surgeon, and more or less full time rare wine collector and Austrian wine enthusiast, set out to do at the 3rd biennial VieVinum in Vienna last weekend.		Jan-Erik Paulson, organiser of the tasting, and Michael Thurner, managing director of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board.

They set up an imaginative and intriguing tasting (blind of course) of white wines to which were invited more than forty wine journalists and wine authorities world-wide. The focus of the tasting was on Chardonnays around the World - French, Austrian, South African, New World. Each of the six flights of six wines contained 3 international chardonnays, 2 Austrian chardonnays, and one Gruner Veltliner, Austria's native white grape. It was fascinating.

First objective was to see how Austrian chardonnays compared with their international counterparts. That was standard stuff. The second and more intriguing question which the tasting was structure to answer was "How do Austrian Gruner Veltliners rate (as a white wine) when tasted alongside international chardonnays, including some very famous white burgundy names?

There were three flights of 1999/2000 vintages, two flights of 1995 - 1998, and one flight of 1990 / 1992.

The results were mind-boggling. In every flight the top-scoring wine was a Gruner Veltliner! When all 36 wines were compiled into one comprehensive list, the first and second wines were Gruner Veltliners and the other four were placed within the next six. In other words, only two Chardonnays were placed within the first eight, and they were both Napa Valley wines.

What do these results mean?

I believe the first point to make is that a well balanced Gruner Veltliner is (a) a very attractive wine, which is why it scores high on its own merits; and (b) it is not easy to distinguish between a good Gruner Veltliner and a Chardonnay, particularly a New World styled one. They both share the same characteristics - rich fruit, a tendency to high alcohol (13.5% and up), a certain "fatness" coupled with a tendency to lack sufficient acidity.

The second point that emerges from the results is that tasters, however experienced, are attracted to round fruity "fat" wines with high alcohol! The six white burgundies were in the second half of the 36 wines. They were typically white burgundies - leaner and even more austere by comparison with Gruner Veltliners, and New World Chardonnays - but they had more finesse and even elegance.

A word about Gruner Veltliner. This is Austria's own native noble white grape, genetic research recently having established it as a direct descendant of the Traminer grape variety. Plantings of this grape have established that it was part of "mixed plantings" in vineyards in Lower Austria going back to medieval times.

The classic Gruner Veltliner taste is for me a cross between a Chardonnay and a Tokay Pinot Gris. The best of this varietal displays a light smokiness coupled with a rounded full-bodied (that is where the impression of "fatness" comes in), richly fruity almost honeyed palate with an alcoholic content on the high side, 13.5% and up. In the best and therefore the ripest vintages, there is often a touch of botrytis on the bouquet and palate, which adds to the richness and fatness. It is in the nature of the grape that there appears to be not enough acidity to balance the very rich fruit, but the acidity is there and is smothered by the very rich ripeness, especially in their youth.

The wines mature extremely well, and as they are big and rich wines are best drunk with food. The most famous names are Brundlmayer, Hirtzberger, Emmereich Knoll, F. X. Pichler, and Prager. These are however sadly boutique-type wineries with tiny productions and hence difficult to come by. The best sources are in the U.K. as there are still no major imports into Singapore. The good thing is that they are much more reasonably priced than equivalent quality of white burgundies.

I should mention that the white burgundies shown at this tasting were from Baron Thenard, Ramonet, Jadot, Sauzet, Raveneau, and Jadot - nothing to be sniffed at either. But as I noted earlier, their wines are different in their characteristics, and the lesson from the tasting still remains:

There is life after white burgundy, and it would be rather boring if all we ever drink is white burgundy.

The Results

The Jury

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