| 2000 chardonnays prove to be winners 03/28/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News
If we did not already know that chardonnay is America's favorite wine, a
look at the entries and results from this year's Dallas Morning News Wine
Competition make it clear. Chardonnay is always the biggest group of wines
to be judged; this year, 400 of the 2,454 entries were chardonnay.
On average, just over 40 percent of the wines in any category win
medals, but the percentage was lower in this category. Chardonnays were
awarded 10 gold, 46 silver and 68 bronze medals.
Some say that this indicates a bias against chardonnay among the judges.
Many wine professionals are proud members of the ABC (Anything But
Chardonnay) club, and when faced with 80 to 100 chardonnays to taste in
a day, even the most experienced judge's prejudices can get in the way.
However, this lower-than-average percentage of medals could also suggest
that vintners who would rather not or really should not be making
chardonnay do so because of market demands.
If you like to keep inexpensive chardonnays around for your house wines,
the competition results suggest that young wines from the southern
hemisphere are of good quality and certainly well priced. Only 17 wines
of the 2000 vintage were entered, all but one from the southern
hemisphere.
Since grapes are harvested in the spring in the southern hemisphere, the
wines are about six months older than wines from the 2000 vintage in the
northern hemisphere.
The 2000 silver chardonnays are both from South Africa:
Cathedral Cellar ($11.99) and KWV ($7.99).
All but one of the bronze-medal 2000 chardonnays are from Australia:
Oxford Landing ($7.99), Grant Burge ($12.99), Jacob's Creek ($7.99), Rosemount
Estate ($9.99), Hardy's Nottage Hill ($6) and Wyndham
Estate ($8.99). The bronze 2000 chardonnay from Chile is by
Caliterra ($7.99).
Chuck Ortman, founding wine maker at Meridian Vineyards, is known as
"Mr. Chardonnay," so it is no surprise that two of his chardonnays won
gold medals. The Meridian 1999 Santa Barbara County Chardonnay
($11.99) displays aromas and flavors of fresh green apples,
ripe pineapples and nectarines, flavor profiles that folks from the
winery say are characteristic of fruit from their White Hills and Cat
Canyon vineyards. The flavors of mango and honey came from their
Riverbench Vineyard grapes.
The fruit for the Meridian 1998 Santa Barbara County 1998
Limited Release ($14.99) comes from the same vineyards, so it
has similar fruit flavors. However, the Limited Release Chardonnay is
creamier, with more buttery, vanilla notes due to 100 percent malolactic
fermentation and aging on the lees (the solid material remaining in the
barrel from fermentation). The Limited Release is normally only sold at
the winery, but because of the gold medal, the winery is making it
available in Dallas.
A gold for its Becker Vineyards 1999 Chardonnay ($12)
is a first for that Texas winery. Dr. Richard Becker and his wife,
Bunny, backed into the wine business while looking for a property to
renovate in the Hill Country. They wound up with more land than they
knew what to do with; land with the same red, sandy soil found in the
vineyards of nearby wineries. So they decided to plant grapes.
Apparently, the 2001 judges think it was the right thing to do. The wine
is available in limited quantities.
Dallas Morning News wine writer Rebecca Murphy is the director of the
newspaper's wine competition. She lives in Portland, Ore.
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