What the !@#$%^&*!? has happened to California Chardonnay? (A rant)

[Van The Man]

Wow!

Great debate. Just sorry I'm getting in on it a bit late.....

Bucko, I agree with you, California Chardonnay is, pardon me Randy C., boring, over vinified, over priced, over oaked, over flabbed, gawd-awful stuff that is better left to the people who have forgotten that wine is food and wine is made first and foremost to be drunk with food.

Last weekend, I had the chance to taste through about 40 Chadonnays from all over the globe. In the warmer climates like California and Oz, the wines are flabby and just too overdone....generally.

I tasted 3 New England wines, half dozen from the Finger Lakes and half dozen from Long Island and these wines are MUCH more interestiand and ABSOLUTELY a much better match with food, especially the nice shellfish (like lobster) and white flakey fish like we have here in the Northeast.

Randy C., I really disagree with the "oak makes the wine more interesting" thing. Oak should, at most, compliment the range of the grape. I still want to taste the terroir and with the typical (not all but most) California Chadonnay, the prorfile is disgustingly the same, time and time again: flabby fruit, heavy oak with moderate to heavy toast with not one iota of delicacy. It comes out of the glass, grabs yoiu and tries to take the flavors away from a meal.

So, I just say no to the stuff. Let the Wine Spectator continue to sell it with 90+ point scores and let the public who doesn't fully understand the wonderful possiblities of matching food with wine continue overpaying for this stuff by the truck load.

I'm with you Bucko, I don't buy it for my cellar and I likely would drink a Budweiser before I'd order it for myself at a restaurant......

That being said, there are two wine clubs I belong to and I get a few bottles every year just to confirm everything I said above.

Randy C., one other thing.....

You're right, the ML, the barrels, the everything are all traditional Burgundian approaches. But keep this in mind: they have the natural acids and lots of malic acid in their grapes that warmer climates don't have. That's why these things taste like a pina collada or kool-aid punch as opposed to wine. ;-)