International Chardonnay Day

International Chardonnay Day was established by Rick Bakas in 2010. Rick Bakas was the first director of social media in the wine industry, teaching wineries how to cultivate and maintain successful social media strategies. International Chardonnay Day is always the Thursday before Memorial Day, so mark your calendars.

Chardonnay is a green skinned grape that originated in Burgundy, but it is now grown all over the world. It is the grape used to make Chablis and white Burgundy, and it is also one of the grapes allowed in Champagne. Depending on where the grapes are grown they will develop certain characteristics. In cooler climates Chardonnay grapes tend to produce wines that are lean, crisp and high in acid, giving them potential for aging. In warmer climates, Chardonnay grapes will tend to produce wines with flavors of tropical fruit.

When most people hear the word “Chardonnay” they think of big, heavily oaked Chardonnay from California and these wines can really divide a room; it seems that most people either love them or hate them. There’s so much more to Chardonnay though. Chardonnay can be heavily oaked, unoaked and everything in between.

For Chardonnay Day I was going to reach for a familiar BC wine but decided to branch out and try something different. Today I’m drinking a 2014 La Chablissienne La Pierrelee Chablis, which is from the northern most district of Burgundy. Chablis tends to be, at most, lightly oaked and it often has a greenish-yellow hue.

This particular wine is pale straw in colour. Aromas hint at buttered popcorn, signaling to me that it is lightly oaked. The nose has some minerality, like crushed gravel, along with apple and green banana notes. The wine itself is medium bodied with high acidity. The minerality follows through to the palate and there are also flavours of green apple and lemon with stone fruit, such as nectarine, on the finish.

In researching this wine I found a great article (click here to view this article) about minerality in wine. There are many wine terms out there that get bandied about, but what do they really mean? In this article the managing director of La Chablisienne, Damien Leclerc, is quoted as describing minerality as “those first big raindrops that fall and dry just before a storm on a hot, dry day.” The article goes on to describe minerality as an “odd sensation: something similar to holding a pebble in your mouth.” It is my feeling that both of these descriptions illustrate this Chablis perfectly.

This wine is lovely and refreshing on its own, but I will pair it with Dungeness crab cakes and caper aioli. I feel this Chablis would also go well with sushi made with shell fish.

Leave a comment below and let me know which Chardonnay you’ll be drinking today – happy Chardonnay Day!