It’s a certainty that many wine shoppers, professionals, and civilians alike share the identical soiled little secret: an retro love for giant, wealthy white wines.
There’s a time and place for every thing. At the very least that’s how the saying goes. However the actuality is that this inclusive declaration is all too simply discarded for the sake of browsing tendencies and becoming in. Navigating the business as a closeted fan of luscious whites within the ongoing age of light-and-fresh, low-alcohol, everything-acid can’t be a simple burden to bear. {Many professional} and social encounters now contain imperious reward for enamel-assaulting acidity as the last word indispensable white wine trait.
A worry of being outed and shamed by colleagues has stored many a mouth shut in hopes of avoiding pop- tradition humiliation. However because the lengthy arc of style begins its overdue retreat from an apex of acid extra, may this responsible pleasure lastly be coming again into type?
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If higher-alcohol wine gross sales are any prophetic indicator, there’s not less than some hope. Napa-based beverage alcohol analytics consultancy Azur Associates, citing information collected from shopper analysis agency NIQ (previously NielsenIQ), reported that whereas total 2024 retail gross sales continued to sink, the higher-alcohol finish of the spectrum — crimson wine, most of the time — climbed by nearly 8 %. Combine in the truth that white wines have grow to be extra in style than reds for the primary time in over 30 years, and it seems a renaissance alternative for wealthy white wines (which additionally are usually comparatively higher-alcohol) could also be creating.
If a rich-styled renaissance is certainly on the horizon for white wine, it’s been a very long time coming. Many years in the past, the now-maligned class noticed vast appreciation. However in some unspecified time in the future, the type flew too near the solar, changing into nearly a parody of itself. As a brand new era entered into its wine-appreciating years, a backlash took maintain, and its affect nonetheless haunts wealthy white wines right this moment.
The Merciless Legacy of ‘ABC’ and ‘Cougar Juice’
Someplace across the late ‘90s to early 2000s, the pendulum hit its furthest excessive, notably for Chardonnay. The grape had grow to be the poster little one for all issues over-the-top within the white wine sphere. “We took issues a little bit too far with the unctuousness,” says Sara Floyd, Grasp Sommelier and co-founder of California’s Swirl Wine Brokers and Luli Wines. “Individuals determined that wasn’t working for them, and costs crept up, too.”
However as an alternative of reigning within the extra, the entire concept of Chardonnay as a world-class selection was slammed as unsophisticated and passé by a classy contrarian set. “Something However Chardonnay” grew to become a contemporary wine tradition mantra, with Rombauer’s iconic bottling — being wildly in style amongst a sure lampooned demographic — derided with the ignominious nickname “Cougar Juice.”
David Ramey, founder and chairman of Sonoma’s Ramey Wine Cellars, pulls no punches along with his distaste for the ‘ABC’ title, branding it “ignorant dogmatism.”
As a celebrated Chardonnay winemaker — unofficially dubbed California’s “Professor of Chardonnay” — his unequivocal rejection of the notion is greater than affordable. But he understands the sentiment that impressed the misguided motion. “There’s room for moderation with out extremes,” he says. “[It was] the knee-jerk excessive response to Bob Parker’s love of high-alcohol, low-acid, and oaky wines. [But] the reply to over-oaked wines is much less oak, not no oak. … [Just as] the reply to over-salted meals isn’t no salt.”
The primary offender sparking the anti-Chardonnay conflagration seems to be the oak itself (Chateau 2×4 for these conserving rating on the insults) and its candy, toasty, caramelly penalties.
“Making an attempt to make one thing tremendous low alcohol in California is simply form of ridiculous. You’re simply combating in opposition to your self.”
“It was a humorous factor,” says Andy Chabot, senior vice chairman of meals and beverage at Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain within the Appalachian foothills of Tennessee. “Individuals actually had been saying ‘something however heavy oak’ for my part, since those self same individuals would say, ‘No Chardonnay, however give me a pleasant Chablis.’” He self-describes as an unapologetic devotee of highly effective white wines, and the Blackberry Farm wine cellar is stocked with a staggeringly deep record of California Chardonnay and Rhône white alternatives (additionally identified for his or her richness) to show it.
And whereas oak was the obvious principal perpetrator, it wasn’t the one attribute that bought caught up within the ‘ABC’ dragnet.
As if not absolutely glad in its retribution for extreme oak crimes, an entire record of in any other case affordable and noble traits had been swept into tradition court docket for abstract judgment. Rounded texture was thrown to the wolves, cleanliness tossed apart, and acid obsession took maintain, with overt thinness and eye-watering pH usually lionized as righteous and superior. “There are wineries who modified the type of their wines to comply with the development, and chasing tendencies on this business is harmful,” Floyd says. “Making an attempt to make one thing tremendous low alcohol in California is simply form of ridiculous. You’re simply combating in opposition to your self. … You’re combating in opposition to mom nature. You need non-intervention, however you’re manipulating it.”
The Different French Paradox
Chabot is a little more forgiving in his evaluation of the reactionary persecution, framing it as an experiment-filled journey of rediscovery again into stability — one which he readily concedes quested to dogmatic extremes at occasions. But when digging by Blackberry Farm’s enviable wine record, one is reminded of an undercurrent of hypocrisy persevering with to hang-out in style wine tradition: It’s stylish if it’s French.
Under no circumstances is that this a hypocrisy dedicated by Chabot or the gathering he’s curated. Removed from it. It’s a high-quality record, and the philosophy behind it’s past reproach. Curiously, although, if quietly shopping the California Chardonnay part, one occurs upon dozens of nice wines about which each professionals and civilians speak trash. However for the in depth white Burgundy and Rhône alternatives — wines that may be equally as highly effective and unctuous — there’s usually nothing however love and reverence.
“I feel shoppers need nice wines which are made appropriately. In actual fact, I feel company need higher wines than ever, made appropriately, however perhaps simply much less of these wines. A extremely nice glass over a reasonably good bottle is a development I’m seeing.”
When requested if he’s skilled this disconnect as a winemaker, Ramey says “most positively.”
He factors to conventional chaptalization practices in Burgundy — the place sugar is added into the fermentation course of to spice up alcohol ranges and richness — as one of many nice ironies about which the final wine consuming public is blissfully unaware. Very similar to “ABC”-movement adherents ordering white Burgundy and Chablis, there’s a disconnect woven into the cultural discourse relating to wine and the nationwide origin thereof.
“I’ve by no means seen anybody flip down a Montrachet in my life,” Floyd says, whereas including that almost all don’t consciously intend to undertake the comparative slight. “It’s a quite common mentality whenever you’re studying about wine,” she says. “You’re so intrigued by Europe. The historical past is so spectacular, [and] it’s the birthplace of those varieties.”
However supposed or not, “ABC” and its lengthy anti-richness shadow appear to have left France and its highly effective white wine examples nonetheless basking within the solar.
The Pleasure Precept Fights Again
The chances of a white wine stylistic development swinging all the way in which again to the 16-percent-ABV, wood-chipper extremes of yesteryear are seemingly slim. However a return to luscious but balanced glasses of golden-hued, barrel-fermented Chardonnay might but be within the playing cards because the tradition retreats from its latest dogmatically austere excesses — regardless of (or maybe due to) present moderation tendencies.
“It’s definitely fascinating to look at the development towards an alcohol-light way of life, whereas on the similar time seeing individuals wanting wines that weren’t essentially low-ABV and high-acid,” Chabot says. “I feel shoppers need nice wines which are made appropriately. In actual fact, I feel company need higher wines than ever, made appropriately, however perhaps simply much less of these wines. A extremely nice glass over a reasonably good bottle is a development I’m seeing.”
Floyd is much more optimistic primarily based on the uptick amongst California Chardonnay icons she represents like ROAR, Ten Acre, and Kongsgaard. “Home Chardonnay gross sales are coming again with a vengeance,” she says. “Gross sales are approach up.” However maybe most significantly is that, for a lot of who don’t hassle to comply with the whims of sceney style, wealthy white wines by no means went out of favor within the first place. “I don’t perceive why we are able to’t similar to all of it!” Floyd laments. “I’ve at all times been perplexed that we now have to have these inflexible tips of yea or nay.”
Reflecting Floyd’s high-end information for the on a regular basis consuming phase, a search of the 50 hottest white wines beneath $30 at Wine.com reveals that a couple of quarter of them are wealthy West Coast Chardonnay — together with Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve at No. 1 throughout most U.S. markets.
“Individuals nonetheless love Chardonnay due to the textural richness it brings. A winemaker identified to me years in the past that as animals, as individuals, we gravitate to the ripest fruit on the tree,” Floyd says. It’s an instinctual pleasure precept. We search out issues which are extra developed. “Take a look at John Kongsgaard, he didn’t change a bit,” she provides. “As a lot as individuals scoff at California and Napa, when that bottle comes out, everybody needs a glass of it. That’s an important factor relating to longevity. [Producers like Kongsgaard] know who they’re.”
With a little bit luck — and a little bit assist from the Chardonnay silent majority — the long-awaited second for a lot of to say, “I used to be a fan approach earlier than it was cool,” may truly be on its approach.
