I have not heard anyone employ the once-clever “ABC” instruction in a long time, and I am glad about that because it never made much sense to me. It stands for “anything but chardonnay,” and cynical wine consumers were quick to vocalize it when asked what they would like to drink.
The smug practice was at its peak probably sometime in the early 2000s when a lot of people were realizing that they were tired of the California chardonnays that were full of creamy vanilla and buttery caramel flavors due to fermentation and/or aging in new American oak barrels.
Chardonnay was widely available, easy to say and easy to drink for a lot of people who were new to wine in the 1980s and 1990s. All of this made the luscious white wine a default order for anyone out in a restaurant or a bar that was at least one step above a dive. Chardonnay was everywhere you looked, and it was big and full of heavy flavor. It became a sort of cocktail all its own, and it is safe to say that that version of chardonnay replaced the original, Old World expression of it the same way choco-tinis replaced the martinis that James Bond and my dad used to drink.
I always thought a few letters were missing in that ABC thing. Like, for instance, ABROOCC would have made sense to me because it would have stood for “anything but really over-oaked cloying chardonnay.” I also could have gotten behind ABCCSCTTLCBC — “Anything but crappy convenience store chardonnay that tastes like cheap butterscotch candy.”
But to rule out an entire grape, one that is used to make beautiful and legendary wines across the globe, with just three letters? It seemed ignorant and reckless to me, like someone saying, “ABW” — “Anything but Wolf” — when asked what they would like to read. Are we talking about Tom, Thomas, Tobias or Virginia? (That’s Wolfe, Wolfe, Wolff and Woolf, but they all sound the same when you say them.)
You can hate coffee, or oysters, or Coldplay, but if you have even the slightest interest in wine, you cannot hate chardonnay. That would be like claiming to be an animal lover but hating dogs because every once in a while they bite someone or eat a whole box of crayons.
Generally chardonnay is a dry, medium-bodied wine with medium to high acidity. It is a versatile and sturdy grape, which has no doubt contributed to its popularity, as it can thrive just about anywhere wine grapes grow. This is also why there are so many styles of it.
It does best in cooler climates, and when it is grown there, it can make for flinty, minerally, crisp wines, with suggestions of lemon or green apple, nuts or even smoke. In warmer regions it produces more lush flavors, ranging from peach to pineapple, melon and honey.
Notice that cream, vanilla or butter did not appear in the flavor descriptions of those climates. Butter happens in the winemaking process. It is a choice that the winemaker makes, and it is easily avoidable — or attainable — by you, the consumer.
So when people say they don’t care for chardonnay, I politely suggest that perhaps they don’t care for certain styles of chardonnay. Often they think that chardonnay equals butterscotch. The fact is, only some chardonnay equals butterscotch, and in those cases it is because the winemaker was overzealous with oak.
The chardonnay grape hails from the Burgundy region of France, where some of the undisputed best chardonnays on earth are produced. If you poured a creamy, oaky chardonnay from California next to a stony chardonnay from Chablis, fermented in stainless steel tanks, you probably would not identify the two wines as being from the same grape. And that is just the start, a very plain and obvious contrast of extremes.
I don’t want to drink a glass of buttery chardonnay before I eat food. But I might not mind a glass of it with some sweet, rich scallops or lobster. With oysters (I don’t like coffee or Coldplay, but I love oysters), I would want to drink a chardonnay that is crisp and minerally.
While the candylike chardonnays of the 1980s and 1990s are fading away more each year, there are still plenty of them available. This is good news for you if you still enjoy that style, even if you are no longer wearing shoulder pads and teasing your hair.
For the rest of you who are open to moving past ABC, start by trying an unoaked chardonnay. If there is any reference to oak or a barrel on the label, skip it. Steel tanks? Book it. Pour it. Drink it.
If you want to start off your night in a restaurant with a viscous, vanilla-kissed glass of buttery chardonnay, have at it — it’s your $15. But the rest of you, especially anyone who has ever prematurely proclaimed, “ABC,” don’t forget that chardonnay has huge range, many moods and many ideas to be discovered, just like the writing of Tom, Thomas, Tobias and Virginia.
About the Author
