Wine Openers

Chardonnay is the world’s fifth-most planted grape but it still needs some attention. Here, winemaker Nancy Janes of Whitewater Hill Vineyards near Grand Junction, Co., checks on some new buds following a light frost.

Chardonnay has been part of American winemaking since at least 1882, when Charles Wetmore planted the vine in his vineyard in Livermore Valley east of San Francisco.

Other plantings followed and in 1912 Ernest Wente, son of C.H. Wente, founder of the winery of the same name in Livermore Valley, convinced his father to import some Chardonnay cuttings from Montpellier University in France.

Carl Wente also brought in some cuttings from the historic Gier Vineyard in Pleasanton, Cal., and gradually Wente developed his own clones.

Today, there are nearly 100,000 acres of Chardonnay planted in California and it’s estimated 80 percent of those vines are the Wente clone.

Wente also bottled the first labeled Chardonnay in 1936, and today Wente, in its fifth generation of family winemakers, bills itself as “The First Family of Chardonnay.”

In the 1970s, thanks to America’s growing interest in wine, especially a food-friendly wine that’s also a superb cocktail wine, and one whose name offered a bit of cachet to a novice wine-drinker’s vocabulary, Chardonnay rapidly became, and still is, America’s No. 1 white wine.

Popularity means more production and as production increased, overall quality suffered.

Chardonnay is a fairly neutral grape and a winemaker can affect the final result without too much effort.

‘No Oak’ Chardonnay gained popularity after a consumer backlash over winemakers using too much oak to flavor their wines.

Some winemakers, preferring to let their vineyards and the grape show themselves without added influences, use non-reactive stainless-steel tanks for fermenting and aging to get the purest expression of the grape itself (call this the French or Burgundian style).

However, like a lot of grapes, Chardonnay also reacts well to aging in oak barrels (mainly French, American or Hungarian). However, too much oak can be deleterious.

A subtle touch of oak (with hints of vanilla, spice, caramel) can highlight Chardonnay’s natural flavors. But too much oak can overwhelm and instead of Chardonnay it tastes like crème brule.

And, of course, some winemakers tried to disguise poor winemaking by adding a lot of oak, sometimes foregoing barrels in favor of oak staves or chips.

“Winemakers must have figured that if a little oak was good, a lot must be even better,” said winemaker Nancy Janes at Whitewater Hill Vineyards and Winery on Orchard Mesa in western Colorado. “Luckily, that stopped.”

Following the inevitable backlash, including a widespread consumer revolt known as ABC (Anything But Chardonnay), winemakers have come back to a more-balanced use of oak.

Today many wineries offer both oak and no-oak choices.

“I’m seeing some consumers going back to a more-oaky style,” said Janes, who was one of the first in the Grand Valley to offer a no-oak Chardonnay. “Not the level of 15 years ago but more of a light oak touch.”

She offers both a no-oak style and a lightly oaked Reserve Chardonnay, the latter rapidly becoming one of her more-popular wines.

Wente also offers a selection of oak and no-oak Chardonnays, including Eric’s Chardonnay, a special, artisan-style Small Lot offering  “preserving the delicate flavors of the fruit” and “expression of the vineyard terroir,” said fifth-generation winemaker Karl Wente.

Chardonnay vines after the 2016 harvest in Colorado wine country. Chardonnay grows well in many different regions and can be adapted to many different styles.

As the Colorado summer approaches (albeit hesitantly at times), and with it the seasonal change in our dining and drinking habits, wine drinkers find themselves lured more and more to a glass of chilled white wine.

Reds are fine for winter and for those moments when the barbecue is turning out well-charred slabs of meat, but the lighter fare of warm-weather meals calls for a well-chilled (not too chilled) white wine.

Consumers have many choices in white wine and while some varieties such as Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier will always have their time in the sun, data reveals Chardonnay remains the favorite white wine of the American wine consumer.

A recent email from New York-based Nike Communications said a 2016 survey of consumer habits revealed 42 percent of U.S. white-wine drinkers said they prefer Chardonnay.

Chardonnay sales in the U.S. in 2016 totaled almost $2 billion dollars, representing nearly 20 percent of all wine sales, amounting to more than 58 million gallons of Chardonnay, enough to fill more than 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Finishing the 2016 Chardonnay harvest in Colorado’s Grand Valley AVA.

So popular is Chardonnay it even has its own holiday, which you might have missed. National Chardonnay Day (May 25) may or may not entitle you to a long weekend but it certainly opens the door for a glass of wine.

Chardonnay’s popularity isn’t surprising, since Chardonnay comes in many styles, is widely available and generally affordable, and is easy to pronounce.

The latter isn’t just a punch line. Most people won’t order something you can’t pronounce, a fact noted by the late Robert Mondavi who in 1968 introduced his drier (less-sweet) version of Sauvignon Blanc by, at least in some versions of this story, changing the name to Fumé Blanc. This not only was in deference to the popular dry Loire Valley wines made from Sauvignon Blanc but also in hopes people could pronounce Fumé Blanc.

The U.S. remains a #Chardonnation, as the people at Nike Communications like to put it, and according to some Nielsen data, is America’s most-asked for wine variety, followed by Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Grigio, Merlot, and Pinot Noir.

Why? Because people like the way Chardonnay tastes.

“I love this grape, it’s such a nice food wine,” said winemaker Nancy Janes at Whitewater Hill Vineyard on Orchard Mesa. “It’s sometimes hard for me to pin down the complexity of Chardonnay but it’s so food friendly.”

Riesling may be known as the world’s most-transparent grape because it shows its place of origin so clearly, but Chardonnay may well be the most-neutral and the grape winemakers love most to work with.

It grows almost everywhere and can be adapted to nearly any style, from lean and crisp to buttery and round, heavily fermented in oak barrel or completely non-oaked in stainless steel.

Chardonnay, by its nature, benefits from the judicious use of oak but by that very mutability led to a downturn in Chardonnay’s popularity when a consumer backlash against the increasing use of oak and oak flavorings (some fad, some to cover sins in winemaking) brought on a consumer backlash in the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) movement.

Recently, however, the general movement in winemaking is back toward using oak as a highlight, not the feature, although there still are many people who want a mouth-filling, buttery Chardonnay.

It’s been said you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince or princess, and the same might be said of Chardonnay. It takes some research (tough, but someone has to do it) to find the right Chardonnay for you, but given its abundance and popularity, the field work will be rewarding by itself.

The cloudy precursors of this week’s cold snap loom over young Glera grapes in the Prosecco DOC. – Dave Buchanan

As I was boarding a plane Wednesday morning at the Verona airport, I turned to look to the north.

A fierce, cold wind whipped the open tarmac and a line of clouds boiled over the Alps, harbingers of the storm to come.

“It looks bad,” said a fellow passenger, with whom I had been talking earlier in the airport. He eyed the massive front moving south over the land. “It might be a bad night for winemakers.”

And indeed it was. As Jeremy Parzens reported Friday in his blog, newspapers across northern Italy are reporting temperatures Thursday night reaching well below zero (C) and fears of widespread damage to grapes, tomatoes, asparagus and other agricultural products.

The cold arrived after days of springlike weather and is feared to have devastating affects on the economy, although it’s still a bit early to tell how great.

More than 3 million tomato seedlings and 450 hectares of vineyards were damaged by Thursday’s frost in Emilia-Romagna. Photo by ANSA

In Valdobiaddene, famed for its Prosecco DOCG, growers woke Thursday to frost on the Glera vines after temperatures dropped to 1 below zero. And another frost is expected for tonight (Friday, April 22). This after what had been an early start to the growing season and lots of tender new shoots on the vines.

Other fruit growers (the area produces apricots and kiwi, among other crops) also expect to see damage to their young fruit.

“The weather this year is scary,”‘ said Stefania Kofler, chairman of the fruit growing sector of Confagricoltura Treviso.

Il Gazettino in Pordenone reported that additional damage could put the local “viticulture and fruit cultivation on its knees.” The reporter, David Lisette, noted that this isn’t the region’s first experience with late spring frosts, but other stories said the occurrent of events is increasing.

Lisette cites a statement from Coldiretti, the agricultural federation of Emilia-Romagna, where temperatures fell to 3 degrees below zero (27 F), which said the sudden swings in temperatures, and recent “heavy impacts on agriculture” including “the rapid transition from drought to flood, short and violent rainfall accompanied by hail and (f)rost” is part of the changing climate occurring across Italy.

And ANSA, the Italian version of our Associated Press, said such climate impacts have resulted in a loss of 1.billion (euros) in agricultural products over the past 10 years. The story was accompanied by the photo shown here, of a well-frosted tomato plant.

A sampling of the selection of organic, natural wines, spirits and ciders available from Lance and Anna Hanson of Jack Rabbit Hill Farm on Redlands Mesa. The Hanson’s products will be featured during Colorado Natural Wine Week, April 17-22. Photo courtesy of Lance Hanson

Cerea, Italy – I knew I was in for a winetasting like no other when I turned to my host for a translation and he winked knowingly.

“Think Topo Gigio,” he said with a Cheshire’s grin.

Topo Gigio? That big-eared Italian TV-star mouse from the 1960s and ‘70s?

“You mean, she said ‘mousey’?” I offered, and he nodded.

“You never know what you’ll get with a natural wine,” he said with a delighted grin.

We were in the renovated furniture factory-turned expo space in the village of Cerea, Italy,

The initial approach to a natural wine is one of investigation and personal definition. What makes a natural wine different and what am I looking for in a wine? Photo courtesy of ViniVeri

about 30 minutes south of Verona, attending Day 2 of ViniVeri 2016. This wine fair is devoted solely to natural wines, those made through organic or biodynamic farming and without the interventionist methods of conventional wines.

There were about 300 other natural wine lovers wandering the space, talking to 100 or so producers, representatives and distributors, and sharing thoughts on what may happen when a winemaker lets nature run its course in the winery.

The answer, of course, is as subjective as all wine preferences tend to be. There are no international standards as to what an organic or natural wine can be, although at the least they are organically grown, hand-harvested and made with minimal human intervention.

I sought out Lance Hanson, co-owner, along with wife Anna, of Jack Rabbit Hill Farm on Redlands Mesa near Hotchkiss, Colorado. Hanson makes true-to-the-essence wines, spirits and ciders, all using local, organically grown fruit and fermented and distilled in a natural manner.

“We had this idea of making place-driven or terroir driven wines inspired by the organic growers in this area,” said Hanson, whose organic farm was certified biodynamic in 2008 by Demeter USA. “It was that (certification) experience that introduced us to the idea of really making and producing wine in the same way we farm: Low-input, very light handling, non-interventionist.”

One standard for a natural wine is that either biodynamic or organic farming techniques must be used.

Most important, however, is the lack of additives, something most people notice the first time they taste a natural wine.

Those missing the additives are what “hide or mask the character of the wine,” Hanson said. “It’s our opportunity to take advantage of the unique character of the fruit grown here and create a unique product.”

The wines of Paolo Bea of Montefalco in Italy’s Umbria region were among those featured at ViniVeri 2016. Bea is one of that country’s quintessential artisanal wine producers. Photo: Dave Buchanan

One winemaker I spoke with at ViniVeri said he was at first put off by the strange flavors in his mouth but then realized he was, for the first time, actually tasting the wine itself.

“Now, I can’t drink a commercial wine,” he said.

No commercial yeasts, no chemicals, no enzymes or flavorings, no Mega Purple to make it darker or reverse osmosis or cryoextraction to make it sweeter or more-concentrated, all of which are common in conventional wines. This is low intervention, hands-off winemaking.

Jeff Gordinier last year said in an article in the New York Times that “when you leave additives out, that means anything goes, with flavors that can be all over the map.”

That unrestrained latitude is one of the attractions of natural wines and one of the reasons natural wines lovers, well, love natural wines. You must have a sense of adventure and willingly check your prior attitudes regarding fermented grape juice at the door before entering.

Was our “mousey” wine bad, in the sense of being “off”? Not necessarily. It wasn’t undrinkable, just unexpected.

But none of the 100 or so natural and organic wines we tasted over two days were like anything I’ve ever had. Most were intriguing, beguiling, mysterious, deserving of more than a quick swirl, sip and dump before moving on to the next.

“That exactly it,” Hanson said when quizzed. “How do I let the fruit express itself in a bottle of wine without getting in its way? That’s what natural winemaking is all about.”

Which is where Colorado Natural Wine Week, set for the Denver/Boulder area on April 17-22, comes in.

You can spend the week days attending seminars by and about winemaker and numerous in-store tastings and extend your nights with wine-bar takeovers and special dinners with selected winemakers. Restaurants in both cities will offer Natural Wine Week specials.

The main event is the public Grand Showcase from 4:30-8:30 p.m. on April 19 at the Space Gallery, 400 So. Santa Fe in Denver.  Tickets are $39/$75 and are available online at coloradonaturalwineweek.org.

And if you’re in Italy in early April, ViniVeri 2017 takes place April 7-9, again in Cerea.

The demand for natural wines is growing, albeit with growing pains including a pushback from conventional and commercial wineries. Maybe it’s a sign of the maturation of the American wine palate that drinkers are willing to explore beyond their comfort zone, to allow themselves some freedom of expression in their glass.

One can hope.