Last Friday night was an evening of momentous occasion. To most it was simply another Friday night, the one that would precede the race that stops the nation but nothing of significant importance. Little did those folk know, as they were sipping their Peroni's and Pinot Gris that a mutiny was brewing just under the surface of the heaving paths of the city. The AlexMacWine club had met at a secret location in the particularly underground suburb of Surry Hills to plan a little event, the second secret meeting of the wine club to discuss the second wine (I can barely summon the courage to spell the name)... CHARDONNAY.
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| Anna, Laura, Emma, Phillipa, Alex Mac |
Oooohhhhh, I can hear the gasp of air you have just sucked in as I pronounced the name, followed by the sound of true silence that can only be suitably paired with rolling tumbleweed. Alas, it was not as bad as you may think. We made it through, drinking chardonnay throughout the evening. Some even found that they liked it! The mutiny has begun, chardonnay will be back.
The evening went something like this:
At an unreasonably early time Alex Mac prepared her canapés and antipasto platter finishing with precisely 15 minutes to go before the guests arrived as per usual. This unreasonable punctuality never leaves any time for guests to be the slightest bit tardy and hence more often than not finds her twiddling her thumbs before the party peeps eventually show up at the door step.
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| Fail - pushed the cork in |
Now it is not custom to start a tasting with a glass of champagne as we all know that this will taint the palate, however we also know that the members of the AlexMacWine Club are wine drinkers not wine experts therefore anything goes. After a glass of delicious Bollinger Champagne and some antipasto the formalities of the evening began.
We learnt that originally Chardonnay comes from a cool climate region such as Burgundy in France. The long growing season and continental climate means that the fruit ripens delicately and therefore produces a crisp clean flavour that we no longer commonly associate with Chardonnay. The thin skins of the chardonnay grapes make the grape extremely susceptible to hazards caused by the weather, which means that the wine maker must be very skilled to understand the weather patterns and know when is the best time to harvest the grapes.
Chardonnay took off in the 1980's when it came to the USA and was adjusted to the palate of the Americans by increasing the fruit. A little economics thrown in tells us that the demand increased so dramatically that there were not enough good quality grapes to meet the demand. Inferior wines began to be produced from inferior regions, which ended fatally for poor old Chardonnay (for a more poetic version of this story please refer to blog 'the demise of a hero').
As always each group member presented their chosen wine. We tasted, we rated and then we had a blind tasting to see if we could actually remember how each one looked, smelled and tasted. The results of this test were actually very interesting. Last month in the Cab Sauv test few of us got anything right, where as this time it was significantly easier to tell the difference between years produced and regions they were from.
The stand out wine for the evening was the Kendall Jackson from California. It was a clean, crisp wine that could be easily drunk with food or on its own but sadly I couldn't find the price online. Other wines that we tasted on the night worth trying were:
2010 Destinations Chardonnay from the Yarra Valley RRP $14.95
2010 Bridgewater Mill Chardonnay from the Adelaide Hills RRP $24.95
2009 Evoi Chardonnay from the Margaret River RRP $42.00
Until next time, have a glass for me. Love Alex Mac
