Chardonnay Masters 2017: the results in full

Judges comments: Jonathan Pedley MW

Good news – there were very few faulted wines. We had one case of cork taint and a couple of wines that were a little tired and vegetal but overall the wines were clean and correct.

There was a very clear price:quality progression through the tasting. This sounds as if it should always be the case but bitter experience has shown that with some grape varieties (e.g. Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir) winemakers try too hard at the higher price levels (e.g. too much oak, over-extraction, over ripeness) and overwhelm the fruit’s inherent character. I guess nowadays most top wineries around the world are good at segmenting their Chardonnay production.

There were a handful of reasonable wines in the <£10 bracket but nothing to get excited about. As time goes by the chances of finding a star in this category diminish. Increasing duty rates, higher dry goods costs and a parlous exchange rate mean that there is less and less money available to be spent by winemakers on the actual liquid in the bottle.

From a country perspective, I got the impression that Australia was the star, with a couple of standout wines from the Adelaide Hills and Western Australia. I am afraid that California did not cover itself with glory; even at the mid-price level there was too much residual sugar. There was a shocking wine from Alicante. New Zealand did OK. Chile and Argentina were the usual mixed bag. Trentino did well. The smattering of French wines did alright but as is often the case they did not sing in this sort of company.

Stylistically the days of excessive oak and/or dominant lactic notes and/or confected tropical fruit seem to be behind us. The odd wines that showed these traits were useful in benchmarking how far we have come.

I reckon that the biggest talking point was the fashionability of the reductive “struck match” school of Chardonnay. Winemaking is now a fashion led industry. We have seen how the Côtes de Provence style of rosé has come to dominate the premium pink wine category and if you were a gambling man you would back the reductive school of Chardonnay to continue to gain adherents. ‘Group Pedley’ had a vigorous debate about the issue as we worked our way through the wines. Clearly some people have a higher tolerance (or should I say enjoyment) of sulphidic notes than others. However, only the most rabid believer (there are some) in reduction is delighted when this character overwhelms all the other Chardonnay traits. I was delighted that our two top wines (a Gold and a Master) were wines that combined a little bit of “struck match” character with all the other elements that can give Chardonnay its unmatched complexity: stone fruits, subtle oak, biscuity leesiness, creamy malolactic notes and a little bit of nuttiness from ageing.