Let’s Get Naked – sipping into something more comfortable
What a great Wine Blogging Wednesday theme this month – naked chardonnay. We’ve got to agree that when Chardonnay gets into its birthday suit and loses all that oak, it sips more comfortably.
I’ve always marveled at how differently Sauvignon Blanc shows from place to place, but took for granted that this continental difference may be so obvious because Sauvignon Blanc, tart that she is, rarely ever shows up not naked.
Chardonnay may be a bit prudish in this regard – but when one begins trying the unoaked variations of chard it becomes apparent that you don’t need to be fat with oak to have body.
One of my contenders for this month’s WBW is the Brampton 2006 Unoaked Chardonnay. Its amazing how beutifuly chardonnay’s figure shows in the absence of oak – and now instead of cloying butter and plump fat wine – we’re getting a fresh seductive aroma of fresh melon, white peaches and ripe pears with abundant floral overtones. The wine is incredibly clean and medium bodied on the palate, bowing out with a long finish that closes with a note of what I can only describe as fresh bread – which must have to do with its time on the lees.
This WBW will no doubt be a lesson to the overly protective wine makers out there, reluctant to allow their Chards to go out into the world without dressing down a little bit. Get rid of the oak and let the fruit flavor’s flow!
Tags: Chardonnay, millennial
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