A native Burgundian with a family heritage of winemaking that goes back to the 17th century, Vincent Girardin began his career in 1982 with two hectares — about 5.15 acres — of vines. The domaine now encompasses more than 25 hectares — about 65 acres — in 60 appellations that stretch from the top to the bottom of Burgundy.

The white wines see about 40 percent new oak; they age about 11 months for village and regional wines, 13 months for Premier and Grand Cru. The reds take 30 to 50 percent new oak, aging from 15 to 18 months.

The domaine produces 46,000 cases of wine annually, most of it in small if not minute quantities from Premier Cru and Grand Cru vineyards. The range can be bewildering: 10 separate wines from Santenay, 10 separate wines from Puligny-Montrachet and so on. The 14 products I look at today, all from 2007, obviously don’t begin to indicate the depth and breadth of Vincent Girardin’s roster. Prices are approximate.

The wines of Vincent Girardin are imported to the United States by Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, Ala.

These are my notes from a trade tasting in New York.
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Three whites:
<>Bourgogne Blanc “Emotion de Terroirs” 2007. Enticing, seductive; gravel and flint with white flowers, yellow citrus and stone fruit; sinew and bone, ringing acidity; just a little lush and sleek. A lovely chardonnay. Very Good+. About $23.

<>Rully Vieilles Vignes 2007. Good depth, quite dusty and minerally in the limestone mode; very dry, austere, needs a year or two to unfurl. Very Good. About $25.

<>Savigny-les-Beaunes “Les Vermots Dessus” 2007. Beguiling, entrancing; apple
and apple blossom, jasmine, flint; fleet and sinewy acidity balanced with tremendous body; fat and sassy but crisp, fraught with limestone; vibrant and resonant. A beauty. Excellent. About $28.50. If I were compiling a restaurant wine list, this would definitely be featured by bottle and glass.

The reds
<>Bourgogne Rouge “Emotions de Terroir” 2007. Simple, direct, tasty, cherry/berry fruit, touches of earth and minerals. Attractive but lacks the dimension of the white version. Very Good. About $24

<>Santenay “Terre d’Enfance” 2007. Impressive, lovely, eminently drinkable; red currants and rose petals buoyed by a chalky/minerally aspect; taut acid but seductive satiny texture; loads of personality and integrity. Very Good+. About $28.

<>Santenay “Les Gravieres” Premier Cru 2007. Earthy, mossy, chalk and crushed gravel; red currant, black cherry and mulberry; some wild, exotic spicy note; dense, chewy and intense. Needs 1 or 2 years but delicious now. Very Good+. About $36.50.

<>Savigny-les-Beaune “Les Vergelesses” Premier Cru 2007. Deep, large-framed, concentrated; very dry, gravelly and austere; a brooding contention of acid and tannin that keeps fruit in abeyance. Try from 2011 or ‘12. Very Good+, for potential. About $36.50.

<>Beaune “Les Bressandes” Premier Cru Vieilles Vignes 2007. Seductive aromas of red and black currants, potpourri, crushed gravel, rose petal, hint of mocha; solid and true, with good dimension and depth, but not exciting, lacks the ultimate generosity of a complete wine. Very Good+. About $42.

<>Volnay Vieilles Vignes 2007. A great pinot noir; damp earth and chalk, tar and leather; red currants and black cherries, briers and brambles; dry, earthy, sinewy, acidity plows a furrow through a dense satiny texture; an exciting wine, filled with confidence and verve. Drink through 2017 or ‘18. Excellent. About $42.

<>Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes 2007. Wow, a massive pinot noir. Leather, violets, wheatmeal; piercing minerality; a little fleshy and meaty, freighted with spice; dried red and black currants; overwhelmingly satiny texture; mid-palate back brings increasingly dry, rooty tannins; finish is dry, austere, distant. Try from 2011 or ‘12 through 2017 to ‘19. Excellent. About $46.

<>Volnay-Santenots Premier Cru 2007. Another great pinot; quite large, resonant and resolute, tremendously earthy, intense and concentrated; vibrant acid cuts a swathe but the wine is rich, spicy, supple, almost succulent (but not Californian); the finish, though, brings in dry tannins, an autumnal austerity. Try from 2011 through 2017 to ‘19. Excellent. About $53.

<>Pommard-Les Grand Epenots Premier Cru Vieilles Vignes 2007. Closed, deliberate, secretive; quite dark, roiling with woody spice; very dense, very chewy; bales of briers and brambles, everything foresty and underbrushy; dry, granite-like earthiness, the power of geological patience. This emits the aura of greatness, but it has miles to sleep before it goes. Excellent potential, 2012 or ‘13 through 2018 or ‘20. About $68.

<>Corton Renardes Grand Cru Vieilles Vignes 2007. True, strong, pure and intense; concentrated yet generous, earthy, autumnal, feral; beguiling yet serious; eloquent expression of the mineral dimension; tremendous tone and presence. A great achievement. Best from 2012 or ‘14 through 2018 or ‘20. Exceptional. About $70.

<>Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru 2007. What’s to say? A monumental Charmes-Chambertin, very earthy, very tannic, mineral-laden, rooty, briery and brambly, a slumbering giant needing four or five years to unfold and then a 15 to 20-year life ahead. Excellent potential, but time is essential. About $125.

… for many reasons but what I’m thinking of particularly is because LL is such a great cook. I tell her this all the time, and she dismisses my praise by saying something like, “Well, I’ve been cooking for a long time, you just learn things.” I think it’s more than that. LL possesses the instinct and intuition that tell her what flavors, spices and herbs compliment each other; she has the ability to add a squeeze of lemon juice here, a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar there, a sliver of butter in this other place and voila, a dish had been intensified. I mean, I take some pride in my Bolognese sauce, but when LL creates a similar sauce, it’s just better, deeper, more resonant.

Even a dish as simple as shrimp risotto, which she made one night last week, ends up being sublime. She served this with asparagus, first blanched and then sauteed with bits of roasted red pepper. What a great meal!

I opened a bottle of Silverado Chardonnay 2008, Napa County. (Yes, “county,” not “valley.”) The winemaking here is carefully done. Grapes for this wine derive from three estate vineyards: Miller Ranch (55%), south of Yountville; and Vineburg (23%) and Firetree (22%), in Carneros, with Vineburg closer to San Pablo Bay. Ninety-one percent of the wine undergoes barrel-fermentation and 9 percent is fermented in stainless steel. The wine ages six months in 95 percent French oak barrels and 5 percent American oak; only 40 percent of the barrels are new. Finally, 34 percent of the wine goes through the malolactic process. I mention these details to show how deliberately winemaker John Emmerich treats the balance of wood to fruit, creating a chardonnay that’s subtle and supple without the overbearing influence of oak or malolactic-induced creaminess. (And it’s amazing how many wineries in California tart up their chardonnays with cheap oak and malolactic effects!)

Instead, the Silverado Chardonnay 2008 is balanced, harmonious and integrated. Classic grapefruit and pineapple flavors are rich yet restrained, slightly smoky and tinged with baking spice. A few minutes in the glass bring up notes of autumnal stone fruit and hints of jasmine. Within a lovely, moderately lush texture, acidity is apple-crisp, and in the sustained finish a thread of limestone ties all elements together. Drink now through 2011. Excellent. About $25.

A review sample.

LL came home for lunch yesterday — remember, our new regime is two moderate meals a day — and fried one small soft-shell crab. Now the curious point is that neither LL nor I are particularly fond of soft-shell crab, but Saturday morning we were at the Memphis Farmers Market standing at the table of a guy who drives down to New Orleans to pick up fish and seafood from his family’s boats and LL said, “Well, let’s try a soft-shell crab.” I was making objecting hums and haws in the background, but she went ahead; we also bought a pound of shrimp and two beautiful fillets of tuna. (The tuna became the ceviche for the tacos we ate Monday.)

Anyway, LL came home for lunch, cleaned the crab, breaded it with flour and panko crumbs and fried it in a skillet. She also sliced some green tomatoes, coated them and fried them. I sliced one ciabatta roll and spread remoulade sauce on the interior. LL slid two slices of fried green tomato onto the bottom half of the roll, set the fried crab on top of the tomatoes, and I sprinkled some shredded romaine lettuce on top of the crabs, then capped it with the other half of the roll. Voila! A fried green tomato and soft-shell crab sandwich, which I cut in half, so we each had a little sandwich, about six bites each. We served these with a salad of baby arugula, chopped romaine, tomatoes and sliced red and yellow peppers. A great lunch!

We were eating on the screened porch in back — the rain stopped after two weeks, and we’re having gorgeous mild weather — and LL said, “We need about this much wine,” holding thumb and forefinger about two inches apart. So I looked in the wine fridge and thought, “Oh, what the hell!” and plucked forth a bottle of the Rossi-Wallace Chardonnay 2007, Napa Valley. The wine is made by husband-and-wife team Ric Forman and Cheryl Emmolo, each of whom has a long history with wine and vineyards in the Napa Valley. Rossi-Wallace, named for their mothers, is a new project; this chardonnay and a Pinot Noir 2007 are the initial releases.

The Rossi-Wallace Chardonnay 2007 sees no oak and no malolactic “fermentation.” Made all in stainless steel, the wine rests seven months on the lees of spent yeast cells. The grapes derive from the same vineyard that supplies Forman’s chardonnay under his eponymous label but for this wine the grapes are harvested a bit earlier. The result of this fairly hands-off approach is a beautiful chardonnay of shimmering purity and intensity. Classic pineapple and grapefruit scents are permeated by quince and ginger and hints of limestone and wet gravel. After a few moments, a wafting of jasmine lifts from the glass. In the mouth, the wine is lithe and supple, almost crystalline in its vibrant acidity; the pineapple-grapefruit flavors take on a touch of roasted lemon and pear, with hints of smoke and mushroom-like earthiness. Such emphasis on the lively and delicious character of the grape is rare in California. If I were managing a restaurant wine list, I would want a couple of cases of this chardonnay in the cellar. Unfortunately — there’s always a rub! — only 150 cases were produced, so mark this one Worth a Search. About $25.

LL and I drank about one-third of this bottle at lunch — it managed the spiciness and assertiveness of the soft-shell crab quite handily — and finished it last night with shrimp risotto.

All the instruments agreed that yesterday afternoon in Memphis was hot as blazes and ridden with shirt-soaking humidity. Nonetheless, we sat out on the screened porch about 5:30 with a bottle of white wine, invitingly sheathed in beaded condensation, and a bowl of our favorite little Tuscan crackers, LL to finish that morning’s Times, and me to continue reading a biography of Frank O’Hara, and saying to LL about every three minutes, “Whoa, it must have been so much fun to live in New York in the ’50s!”

Now unless you are the sort of person endowed with the fiduciary prowess to say something like, “Let’s sit outside this afternoon. I’ll grab a bottle of Lynch Bages Blanc” — a wine I will admit not tasting for a decade or so — then you, like I, would bring something more modest to the table, in this case a bottle of El Coto Rioja Blanco 2008. This is not a great wine, and I think that anyone sipping from a glass of it would feel the same. It’s made from viura grapes, and not meaning to cast aspersions, this is a grape simply incapable of greatness. You could throw a lot of French oak at it, as some misguided producers are doing with the unsuspecting grüner veltliner grape in Austria, and the result would not be a great wine but merely an over-oaked, ponderous wine.

El Coto Rioja Blanco 2008 is, however, thoroughly enjoyable. Made completely in stainless steel, it’s taut and stony, moderately spicy in its general citrus-like nature, dry and crisp and with an almost haunting floral aspect. Fulfilling its purpose as a screened porch, late Summer afternoon, aperitif quaffer, it rates Good+, and there’s not a damned thing wrong with that. About $10, and appropriate for poolside, picnics, patios and such. Imported by Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York.

Later for dinner, though, needing more character and presence, I opened the Sequoia Grove Chardonnay 2007, Carneros, Napa Valley. Here’s a chardonnay perfectly suited to our palates. Given a cool fermentation in stainless steel, the wine is transferred to French oak barrels, of which only 35 percent are new; the wine does not go through the malolactic process — in which sharp apple-like (“malic”) acid is transformed to smooth milk-like (“lactic”) acid — the result being a chardonnay that tastes like the grape, is lively and vibrant, and receives subtle and supple support from wood. The Sequoia Grove Chardonnay 2007 is bright and bold, with a lovely shape and texture, a sort of lushness permeated by crispness thing, as if you were biting into a peach and an apple at the same time. Classic flavors of pineapple and grapefruit reveal nuances of cloves and roasted hazelnuts, while the finish is sleek, resonant and slightly floral. Drink now through 2011 or ‘12 (well-stored). Excellent. About $28.

My point, lecteurs, semblables et freres, is not that one wine is better or worse than another wine but that a wine makes its place with a sense of purpose as well as accommodation. There’s room for compromise between the positions that (A.) you can drink any wine any time with any food you want to and that (B.) each wine created on God’s Green Earth matches with one exact and Platonic food or dish and no other. What’s important is a sense of proportion. When we look at a Dutch still-life painting — this is Breakfast Still Life with Blackberry Pie (1631) by Willem Claesz Heda — the glasses of wine depicted therein embody an astounding sense of authority and deliberation. This ideal, we think, this bride of quietness, is the only possible wine that could have found a place in this setting, among these glowing foods and burnished plates and utensils and glittering fabrics, and I defy you not to wish that you were there, in that painting, so you could try that wine, which would surely offer a form of transcendence.

We do not, however, as much as we might wish, live inside a Dutch still life painting, and in this imperfect world all we can hope for is a modicum of poise, the reasonableness to make choices based on our preferences and experiences, two qualities that feed from and strengthen each other. Are there truly no wrongs choices in choosing wine? Of course there are, but even wrong choices broaden our experience and help lead us to the right ones. Just don’t expect too much of wine — it’s only a beverage — but let it speak to you itself of its own virtues and let it find its own place.

“Breakfast Still Life with Blackberry Pie” hangs in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.

Ever full of surprises, LL brought home a container of squid from the grocery store, already cleaned and ready to be sliced or scored and prepared. She found a recipe on the Internet, and this incredibly delicious, succulent dish — squid cooked with tomatoes, onions and garlic, thyme, saffron and bay leaf, with some black olives and flat-leaf parsley — was the result. We slurped this great stuff up last night and scoured the bowls with pieces of the bread I made yesterday.

I wanted a wine, specifically a chardonnay, that would match the flavorful dish, but I didn’t want a lot of oak; like, when do I ever in a white wine, right? So I opened a bottle of the Ad Lib “Tree Hugger” No Oak Chardonnay 2008, from the Pemberton region of Western Australia. Winemaker is Larry Cherubino — “Little Angel” — one of the best winemakers in Australia today. In addition to his winery, The Yard and the Ad Lib brand, he was until recently winemaker for Merryvale Vineyards in Napa Valley.

Anyway, while the whimsical label and the motto on the back — “No trees were harmed in the making of this wine” — are attractive, the wine in the bottle is even more compelling. The color is pale straw; aromas of roasted lemon and lemon balm, ginger and spice waft from the glass. The wine radiates purity and intensity, offering amazing body, density and character while maintaining a crystalline edge of vibrant acidity and a resonant mineral element that rivals the White Cliffs of Dover. The finish hints at white flowers and orange zest. A beautiful chardonnay. Excellent. About $17, a Great Value. We enjoyed it with the squid tremendously.

Cherubino also makes, in this series, the Ad Lib “Hen & Chicken” Oaked Chardonnay 2008, Pemberton, Western Australia, and though it’s a carefully crafted wine, I didn’t like it as much as the Tree Hugger Chardonnay. The wine sees eight months in new and two-year-old French oak barrels and goes through 80 percent malolactic process. At first, I thought that the wine was fairly Burgundian, with its touches of bacon fat and Parmesan rind, its vivid, ripe pineapple-grapefruit flavors; after a few minutes, it displayed marked smoke and spiciness, with flavors of buttered and roasted peach and grapefruit, and in the end, the oak became a little pushy and strident, where in the beginning I had perceived it as more subtle. If you like a chardonnay with oak that comes to the forefront, you will probably think that this one is Excellent. For me, though, I’ll go with Very Good+, because it’s my palate and my blog and I can do that. About $17.

These wines were imported by Vintage New World, Shandon, Cal.

My linkedin profile.

Nothing could have been simpler or, honestly, more delicious. For dinner last night, LL sprinkled olive oil and tarragon, salt and pepper on a fillet of steelhead salmon and let it sit for a while. She thinly sliced about a dozen fingerling potatoes and sauteed them in olive oil with celery and green onions and dressed them with a vinaigrette to make a warm salad. We had some baby bok choy left from Chinese take-out the night before. She briefly sauteed the salmon in a cast-iron skillet and then put the skillet with the salmon in a 375-degree oven for about three minutes. The salmon came out with a slight crust but was just at rare in the interior. Perfection.

For wine I opened a bottle of the Natura Chardonnay 2008, from the Emiliana winery in Chile’s Casablanca Valley. This is a cool region, northwest of Santiago, where the climate is appropriate for chardonnay and pinot noir. The Natura wines are made from certified, organically-grown grapes.

The grapes are fermented in stainless steel tanks; half of the wine stays in tank while the other half goes into French and American oak for five months. This is a chardonnay nicely balanced between steely minerality, earthiness and ripe, spicy fruit. It opens with lime, lime peel and limestone that expand into pineapple and grapefruit. The pineapple and grapefruit linger in the mouth, unfolding touches of quince, ginger and cloves and a hint of mango. In a few minutes, the nose offers a beguiling strain of jasmine and honeysuckle. Grounding this range of delights is a persistent chalk-like mineral quality and lively acidity. A light, delicate chardonnay for summer drinking. Very Good+. About $11 to $13, and a Great Bargain.

Royal Imports, a division of Banfi Vintners, Old Brookville, N.Y.

My linkedin profile.

In the “Wine of the Week” post on March 24, for the Morgan “Highland” Chardonnay 2007, Santa Rita Highlands, I mentioned that I sometimes face the prospect of uncorking a bottle of chardonnay from California with trepidation because I fear finding “an over-oaked, stridently spicy, tropical fruit cocktail laced with meringue and caramel. Yuck!”

This brought a response from Robert Dwyer of The Wellesley Wine Press blog, who said, “Ironically, your description of the ‘Yuck!’ wine aligns almost exactly with one of my *favorites* from last year: here.”

Dwyer asked for some examples of my “Yuck!” chardonnays so he could compare them to the kinds of chardonnays he regards as his favorites. I have tasted a few “Yuck!” chardonnays recently, and I will oblige a fellow-blogger, but first, let’s take this opportunity to examine what makes a “Yuck!” chardonnay.

The main principle involved here is “Purity vs. Process,” that is, the purity of the chardonnay grapes versus the winemaking process that can, potentially, mask and distort the grapes’ character with the extraneous elements that when emphasized or exaggerated produce what to my palate is a “Yuck!” chardonnay, a chardonnay that is — to quote the approving Wine Spectator — “superripe and exotic,” “rich and creamy,” with “buttery pear, fig and toasty oak” and “roasted marshmallow on the finish.” Friends, if I wanted roasted marshmallows, I’d sit by the old campfire and sing “Kumbaya.”

Intrinsically, there’s not a damned thing wrong with barrel-fermentation, oak aging and malolactic fermentation (a misnomer, since the malolactic process has nothing to do with fermentation). These processes can do much to enhance the complexity of a wine, in this case chardonnay, but carried out by rote, or with a sense of entitlement, they can destroy a wine’s nature and turn it into nothing more than a vehicle for transferring wood from the barrel to your mouth. These brief remarks, by the way, greatly simplify the chemical processes and implications involved in oak-aging and malolactic.

When you smell coconut in a chardonnay, that element didn’t come from the grapes; it derived from the lactones in the oak. Vanilla? Nope, that’s not part of the chardonnay grape’s flavor profile; vanilla comes from oak’s phenolic aldehydes. Roasted, dried spice and smoky aspects? Call those qualities volatile phenols. The caramel flavor that so many people inexplicably admire in chardonnay — as far as I’m concerned, you can save the caramel for ice cream — is a product of carbohydrate degradation resulting from toasting the barrels when they’re manufactured.

Any of these qualities deployed with subtlety and nuance can help shape a chardonnay’s pleasurable aspects, but too many winemakers use oak as a sledgehammer to bludgeon the grape into submission in the winery. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard producers assert that the chardonnay grape is a blank slate waiting for a winemaker to write his or her techniques and personalities on the poor grape. Oh shame! As if a great and noble grape like chardonnay required the errant egos of winemakers to give it character.

The bacterial malolactic process, which coverts crisp malic (“apple-like”) acid into softer, creamier lactic (“milk-like”) acid is a naturally occurring — though it’s usually induced — and useful transformation, especially in cooler regions where high acidity can be a problem. Both red and white wines may go through “malo,” though lighter wines intended for immediate consumption are better off without it. The creamy, buttery, butterscotch qualities that so many winemakers and consumers find desirable in chardonnay wines (sounds like birthday cake to me) derive from the malolactic process, in particular from excess diacetyl (2,3-butanedione, used by manufacturers to impart a butter flavor to margarine and baked products).

And while I once heard a winemaker in Australia assert that no great wines could be made without oak, the truth is that some of the greatest white wines — some chardonnays of Chablis, rieslings of Alsace and Germany, chenin blancs of the Loire Valley — often see no oak and damned little malolactic.

Some of my favorite producers of chardonnay in California are Cakebread, Grgich Hills, Oakville Ranch, Hendry, Nickel & Nickel, Morgan, Smith-Madrone, Truchard, Chalone, Landmark and Ridge, all of which manage oak very carefully, tailoring the proportion of new to used barrels to the vintage and the vineyard instead of blindly adhering to a set regime. Now the situation is not a matter of tit for tat; one cannot say literally that one winery’s chardonnay is over-oaked because this amount of new oak was used for a certain number of months and another’s isn’t because a lesser amount of new oak was used for a shorter aging period; it’s not that simple. Yet oak (and malolactic) make a difference, and to my palate a huge difference, between wines that reflect the purity and character of the chardonnay grape and those that turn chardonnay into a Frankenstein monster manipulated into being in the laboratory of the winery.

Image #1, courtesy of pro.corbis.com.
Image #2, courtesy of crafty-owl.com.
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All right, here are links to reviews of chardonnays (under $50) that I thought were extra-terrific, posted on BTYH within the past year: Louis Latour Chassagne-Montrachet 2006 ($46); Louis Latour Viré-Clessé 2006, Maconnais ($18); Louis Jadot Saint-Vèran Domaine de la Chapelle aux Loups 2006 ($19); Domaine Faiveley Mercurey “Clos Rochette” 2006 ($34); Capel Vale Chardonnay 2007, Margaret River, Western Australia ($22); Gundlach-Bundschu Chardonnay 2006, Sonoma Valley ($25); Nickel & Nickel Medina Vineyard Chardonnay 2006, Russian River Valley ($45); Oakville Ranch Chardonnay 2006, Napa Valley ($46); Truchard Chardonnay 2006, Napa-Carneros ($30); Landmark Damaris Reserve Chardonnay 2005, Carneros ($35); The Lane “Beginning” Chardonnay 2005; Adelaide Hills, Australia ($45); Picket Fence Chardonnay 2006, Russian River Valley ($20).
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And here are new reviews of 18 chardonnays from California that I tried over the past six months, with the preponderance in the last two weeks. The order is alphabetical, not hierarchical. Several are ideals; several are “Yuck!” wines; most fall in between.
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Cuvaison Chardonnay 2007, Napa Valley-Carneros. Medium gold color; green apple and peach, pineapple and grapefruit in the nose with touches of woody spice; very dry, good balance between spareness and opulence, pineapple and grapefruit flavors with hints of pear and honeydew; more oak comes up on the finish and more dried spice but leavened by penetrating minerality. Neither the press material that came with this wine (and the next) nor the winery’s website indicate how much oak is embodied in these wines. Suffice to say that this “regular” bottling of Cuvaison’s Napa-Carneros chardonnay is more integrated than the following example. The alcohol content is 14.2 percent. This rates Excellent. About $24.
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Cuvaison S Block Chardonnay 2006, Napa Valley-Carneros. To my palate, this chardonnay is a disaster. Way over-wrought, almost hysterical with oak. All smoke and toast and roasted marshmallow and strident spice. Fruit? Forget it. Alcohol content is 14.5 percent. Avoid. About $36.
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Cycles Gladiator Chardonnay 2006, Central Coast. Surprisingly complicated for the price, with enticing notes of orange zest, dried spice and white, waxy flowers; this is rich and spicy in the mouth, with lightly buttered and roasted grapefruit and pineapple flavors and deftly balanced acidity and mineral qualities for structure and backbone. 60 percent oak, 40 percent stainless steel. Alcohol content is 13.5 percent. Very Good and a Bargain at about $10. Frankly, I would rather drink this cheapo chard than many of the expensive, over-elaborated examples mentioned on this page.
(more…)

A filet of Coho salmon, sprinkled with salt, pepper and lemon juice, briefly sauteed and then roasted at 450 degrees, all this adding up to no more than about four minutes, so the fish is rare inside but not raw and slightly crusty outside. Kale sauteed with shallots and then steamed in white wine and agrodolce. (Yes, we’re all about omega-3!) Brown rice. A simple and utterly satisfying dinner.

With some trepidation, I opened a bottle of The Lane “Beginning” Chardonnay 2005, from Australia’s Adelaide Hills. With trepidation, I say, because the label description uses terms like “opulent,” “slippery and sensuous,” “evolutionary new style,” typical code-words, in my sensibility, for “over-oaked” and “undrinkable.”

Fortunately, the wine is anything but over-oaked and undrinkable; it is, in fact, not only compulsively drinkable but is one of the most elegant, high-toned, mineral-dominated chardonnays I have ever tasted. It’s like a great Chablis elevated to the nth power. The first impression is of steely leanness, as if you’re drinking cold metal. It’s amazingly clean, quickly turning floral, but in an austere, almost astringent manner, like some tailored cologne, and then it picks up notes of lime-basil and roasted lemon. As the moments pass, the wine adds some heft, a little fatness to its seductive texture, but it never becomes powdery or opulent, despite what the label states. It retains its ripe and blossomy nature — and there are touches of lime peel and crystallized ginger — but any stab at sensuous qualities is balanced by electrifying crisp acid and a limestone element that seems rooted in the very bedrock of the Cambrian period. This chardonnay, well-stored, should develop power and intensity for six or seven years. Bottled with a screw-cap for easy opening. Exceptional. About $45.

Imported by Tom Eddy Wines, Calistoga, Ca.

This brief foray into the white wines of the venerable house of Louis Latour scarcely taps into the long list of products the company produces. Not counting Beaujolais, but counting Chablis, the Côte de Nuit and Côte de Beaune of Burgundy proper and the Mâconnais and Côte Chalonnaise, Louis Latour produces 64 whites wines and 82 red wines. Of course some of these, from the Grand Cru vineyards and some of the Premier Crus, are made in minuscule quantities and are correspondingly expensive.

Louis Latour was founded as a négociant-éléveur in 1797 and 10 generation later is still owned and run by the Latour family. The company owns 125 acres in Burgundy, of which 71.6 acres are in Grand Cru vineyards, the largest amount of Grand Cru acreage owned by a single house.

If 2005 in Burgundy produced chardonnay-based wines of immense power, dynamism and intensity, the whites of 2006 are more subtle and supple, generally, more crystalline is structure and acidity. Let’s say that the 2005 whites exude glamour, while the 2006 whites are lovely.
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Le Chardonnay de Chardonnay 2006. Here’s a fresh, clean, well-structured expression of the chardonnay grape, originating from the village of Chardonnay in the Mâconnais; apparently, this is where chardonnay was first planted. Made completely in stainless steel, the wine combines crisp acid, a limestone element that feels lacy and almost transparent and spicy citrus flavors; the bouquet includes an afterthought of orange blossom and honeysuckle. This would be a terrific house wine, whether for your house or for a bistro-style restaurant. Very Good, and Great Value. About $16.
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Red wine accounts for about 95 percent of the production of the Beaune appellation, but Louis Latour’s inclusive philosophy practically dictates an expedition into the white wine side. Latour’s Beaune 2006 is an elegant and at this point, almost two years old, a nicely developed chardonnay. The enticing bouquet offers smoke, jasmine, lemon curd and lots of spice, while in the mouth, the wine is quite dry, minerally, vibrant and lavishly oaky; fortunately, there’s also a full complement of buttery, roasted pear and citrus flavors. Drink now through 2011 or ‘12. Very Good+. About $25.
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The Louis Latour Meursault 2006 is a “village” wine, meaning that the grapes come from the vineyards of Meursault that are officially designated but not Premier or Grand Cru vineyards. In difficult years, producers will sometimes de-classify their Premier Cru wines and bottle them as village wines. Ideally, a village wine will embody the typical character of the appellation. This Meursault 2006 certainly captures the richness of typical Meursault, with its buoyant, deep, spicy bouquet and its generous, ripe almost savory fruit, but the wine is also searingly steely and minerally, dry and austere. It could use a year to mellow and then should drink well through 2012 or ‘13. Very Good+. About $39.
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Chateau de Blagny is a monopole for Louis Latour, that is, a rare instance where a producer in Burgundy owns an entire vineyard; usually vineyards are divided among many owners, who sometimes own as little as two or three rows of vines. The Meursault-Blagny Premier Cru Chateau de Blagny 2006 is impressive for its firm structure, its richness and expansive spicy quality and the depth of its fruit, but I found the wine not merely influenced by oak but downright woody. I wouldn’t touch the wine until 2010, hoping it will mellow and find some balance. Very Good. About $55.
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Yes, friends, we have come to a time when a Premier Cru white wine from Burgundy can cost upward of a hundred smackers and more, so let’s have no more of that “what ever happened to the $40 Premier Cru” nostalgia, and anyway, in the case of the blatantly wonderful Louis Latour Meursault-Charmes Premier Cru 2006, let’s pretend that the recent world-wide financial melt-down dealt no fatal blow to our fiduciary prowess. My first note is: “Oh wow!” This is an absolutely lovely and expressive chardonnay, deep, resonant, vibrant and complete. Roasted lemon and lemon curd flavors are imbued with smoke and hints of ripe pear and peach. The wine slides across the tongue in a self-confident display of satiny opulence, but chiming acid and an almost plangent limestone element keep any extravagance in check. Spicy oak comes through on the finish, though ultimately the wine is beautifully balanced and integrated. Drink through 2016 to ‘18 (well-stored). Excellent. About $90.
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Louis Latour’s stylish Chassagne-Montrachet 2006 manages several paradoxes with the handiness of Ricky Jay shuffling a deck of cards while juggling three bowling pins. The wine seems woven of tissues of delicacies that add up to firm size and dimension; it feels weightless at first, but it gathers ripeness and substance; the wood influence is subtle, supple and almost subliminally spicy, yet the wine openly declares its richness; clean, crisp acid and a powerful mineral factor round this impeccably-made village wine off with a touch of austerity. Well-nigh irresistible. Drink now through 2013 or ‘15. Excellent. About $46
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The Louis Latour Chassagne-Montrachet “Morgeot” Premier Cru 2006 offers a generous, seductive bouquet of roasted lemon and lemon balm, jasmine, baking spice and super-clean limestone. This is a graceful wine, substantial without being obvious, dense, supple and silky, and perfectly balanced among ripe, sweet citrus flavors, subtle oak, bright acid and a steely mineral element that deepens as the moments pass. A lovely wine with a hint of seriousness about it. Drink now through 2014 to ‘16. Excellent. About $81.

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Please don’t take the impression from the previous post that I dislike all chardonnays made in California. What I dislike are badly-made wines — that is, thoughtlessly-made and overmanipulated wines — of any grape, genre and geographical origin. The truth is that I like California chardonnays quite a lot, especially when they capture the essence of what I think of as classic California-ness, a variety of bright ripeness and textural power married to clean acidity and a profound mineral element.

There’s no need for the Golden State’s producers to adhere strenuously to Burgundian and Chablisienne models, as glorious as the chardonnay wines from those hallowed region can be, just as there’s no need to suppress the natural exuberance that California’s many and richly varied microclimates often impart, especially in warmer areas. There’s also no need, however, to exaggerate that exuberance through the slavish use of French oak and the (wholly natural but easily subdued) malolactic process that occurs in barrel and transforms crisp malic (“apple-like”) acid to creamy lactic (“milk-like”) acid.

Ripeness is essential, but balance is all.

*Blackstone is known best for inexpensive, competently-made and rather bland wines, especially merlot. Ho-hum, right? So I was surprised and gratified by the quality of the Blackstone Sonoma Reserve Chardonnay 2006, Sonoma County. The color is medium gold; the bouquet offers classic pineapple and grapefruit flavors with a hint of mango and a touch of buttered toast. The wine is vivid and vibrant, immensely flavorful and zinging with acid to compensate for some of the richness of the spice-drenched pineapple and grapefruit flavors. The oak comes up from mid-palate back, lending some austerity and a hint of vanilla to the finish. I would like the wine better if the oak were a bit gentler in the caboose, but I think it shows amazing dedication from the winery. Very Good. About $17. Blackstone also produces a Reserve Merlot 2005 that’s well-worth picking up (Very Good+) at $15 to $19.

*The Raymond Reserve Chardonnay 2006, Napa Valley, is fermented in stainless steel; 70 percent of the wine is aged in new French oak for three months; malolactic is not permitted. The result is a chardonnay of incredible freshness and crispness with just a wisp of spicy oak to bolster the wine’s ineffable prettiness. Green apple, pear and yellow plum scents waft irresistibly from the glass to be joined by a hint of jasmine. In the mouth, the wine sports typical pineapple-grapefruit flavors in a pleasing texture of moderate weight that channels vibrant acid and scintillating limestone elements. Overall, the balance is impeccable. Very good+, and a great candidate for a house chardonnay. About $20, though one finds internet prices as low as $16.

*Markham Vineyards celebrates its 30th anniversary this year; perhaps it has been around long enough to suffer casual neglect, because it’s a winery that often does not receive proper due for making well-balanced wines and selling them for reasonable prices. The Markham Chardonnay 2006, Napa Valley, possesses not only an attractive character but some individuality, especially in a slight herbal aspect unusual for a chardonnay. The fruit is lovely, round and spicy, bright and vivid, laden with peach and roasted lemon twined with jasmine. Snappy acid keeps the wine lively, limestone provides a foundation and oak makes it supple. That oak influence gains through the finish, turning it a little “blond,” a little toasty, but overall the wine is beautifully balanced and integrated. Neither the notes that accompanied the wine to my house nor the winery’s website provides information about the oak treatment, but whatever the case, the wine came out just fine. Excellent. About $21.

*A great deal of care went in to the making of the Handley Vineyard Chardonnay 2006, Anderson Valley, Mendocino County. The grapes are fermented and the wine ages in a combination of new barrels (24 percent), neutral barrels (meaning used several times) and large puncheons. The wine ages a bare three months; 32 percent of the wine goes through malolactic. Here, then, is a chardonnay that’s not only bright, clean and fresh but elegant and finely chiseled. Very ripe pineapple and grapefruit flavors with undertones of apple and smoky pear are nestled in a texture that embodies moderate richness and lushness balanced by snazzy acid and wet stones. This sense of structure carries through to the finish, which, unfortunately, feels a little narrow. Hence a Very Good+ rating for a chardonnay that’s compulsively drinkable. The alcohol level, by the way, is 12.8 percent; when was the last time that you saw a California wine of any kind whose alcohol was that sane? Production is 1,934 cases, from organic estate grapes. About $22.
On the other hand, I would avoid the Handley Chardonnay 2006, from the Russian River Valley. Its towering alcohol content of 15 percent makes it awkward, off-kilter and hot. About $20.

*Wines from Clos du Val are sometimes dismissed by writers with the faint praise of being elegant, and then I have to wonder, “Isn’t elegance better than shameless flamboyance?” A perfect example is the Clos du Val Chardonnay 2006, Napa Valley. This happens to be cast in the Chablis mode: cool, high-toned, packed with slate and limestone, imbued with a clean earthiness that includes a flush of lightly sauteed mushrooms; quite classic. Yet one notices California-like aspects in touches of candied citrus peel and lemon balm, hints of honeysuckle and roasted pear. All of these qualities are impeccably integrated and balanced, in a smooth, yet vibrant and resonant package. The grapes are barrel-fermented, and the wine ages 10 months in French oak, only 20 percent of which are new. This was a great match at our house with fillets of King salmon, given nothing but salt, pepper and lemon juice, and briefly grilled. Excellent. About $24.

*My first note on the Sonoma-Loeb Private Reserve Chardonnay 2006, Sonoma County, is “Whoa, classic California!” It’s a large-framed chardonnay, incredibly powerful, vibrant and resonant and bursting with ripe, spicy pineapple-grapefruit flavors bedded on fathoms of limestone and enlivened by purposeful acidity. This, my friends, is a real mouthful of wine, a personification of glamor, yet it manages, paradoxically, to behave itself and display a little restraint, it holds something back, though the oak comes up like a tide through the finish; still, great balance all around. Drink now through 2012 or ‘13. Excellent. About $25 at the winery, but you’ll find prices around the country up to $33.

*The Hendry Barrel-Fermented Chardonnay 2004, Napa Valley, is just damned superb. (The ‘05 is available now; I haven’t tried it.) Made from vines planted in 1974, the wine is beautifully delineated, packed with detail and dimension and with every resource of vibrancy and resonance that a chardonnay can call forth; the purity and intensity of the chardonnay grape here are so concentrated yet so generous that the wine feels crystalline, otherworldly. It spends 11 months in French oak, 33 percent new, and it does not go through the malolactic process, a factor that lends elements of spice and suppleness without throttling the wine with wood. Power is married to elegance, even whimsy, as roasted lemon flavors take on notes of orange zest and cinnamon toast. This is still young; try now through 2012 or ‘14. Exceptional. Prices range from about $21 to $27, a bargain considering the tremendous quality and character of the wine.

*The Nickel & Nickel chardonnays are barrel-fermented but do not go through the malolactic process. Oak is typically fairly restrained; both of these wines received nine months in French barrels, 42 percent new oak for the Truchard, 55 percent new oak for the Medina. Despite that fact, you feel the oak a bit more in the Nickel & Nickel Truchard vineyard Chardonnay 2006, Napa-Carneros, than in the Nickel & Nickel Medina Vineyard Chardonnay 2006, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County. Still, the Truchard is sleek and smooth, almost lustrous; it’s a golden blond, while the Medina is more platinum. The Medina, my favorite of this pair, reveals tremendous presence and verve, incredible layering of limestone and shale, of rich spicy fruit and vivid acidity; the texture is almost talc-like yet it retains electrifying crispness. Each is a terrific chardonnay, but I give the Truchard a rating of Excellent and the Medina, well, it has to be Exceptional. Drink these now through 2012 or ‘13. Each about $45.

*The Oakville Ranch Chardonnay 2006, Napa Valley, takes apple-pineapple-grapefruit flavors and etches them with crystallized ginger and cloves, then brings in notes of roasted lemon, lemon balm and jasmine. The wine is clean and fresh, chiming with acid and dense with damp limestone; that density and the intensity burgeon in the glass, creating a wine that feels not just lively but alive; you wonder how the bottle contains it. Oak — 11 months, 70 percent new French barrels — is subtly revealed in the wine’s suave suppleness, in unobtrusive layers of spice. This is a very young chardonnay; drink now through 2011 or ‘12. Production is 513 cases. Excellent. About $46.