White Burgundy is one of life’s great pleasures, so don’t be intimidated – it’s easy to dive right in.

Although the category offers incredible diversity in style, quality, and price, we provide a roadmap that gives you a shortcut for deciding which wine is perfect for you on every occasion.

The best way to begin is to ask yourself the questions below.

Who will you be with?

Family, friends, and work clients each require a different solution to finding the perfect white Burgundy.

Choosing a wine to share with your family should be easy, but often it isn't. Hopefully, they will not judge you, but one wants top quality for those who are close.

Ideally, your house white Burgundy will be an everyday wine, so find a producer working in a style that you like and anchor your wine fridge with one of their entry-level offerings.

I delight in finding a solid sub-£25 Mâcon-Villages and laying down a case for frequent drinking, such as the Domaine Frantz Chagnoleau Mâcon-Villages Clos Saint-Pancras.

You may wish to surprise your friends, so explore something new among the region's rising stars.

The wines with the most buzz will not be the least expensive, but they will still cost less than top names.

Guillaume Lafon, son of renowned winemaker Dominique Lafon, has just founded his own domaine and is producing tremendously exciting wines.

Clients need to be impressed with a classic wine that is reliable in every vintage, so choose a well-known name from a classic region.

Bosses, however, will be impressed by smart choices, so let the size of your expense account determine whether you are picking a regional Bourgogne, a village-level wine, or a ravishing premier cru.

What is your style?

At the risk of oversimplifying, it may help to think of three main styles of white Burgundy: crisp and refreshing, richly exuberant, and polished and elegant.

The good news is that you can find bargains among all three types. The classic example of ‘crisp and refreshing’ is Chablis.

The wines have aromas of citrus and green apple, and the better ones have a pronounced flinty, mineral note.

Although it’s fine to start with an inexpensive Petit Chablis, but for a surprisingly small increase in price, you will find a village-level Chablis like the 2024 Domaine Billaud-Simon that will give you the full range of minerally, lemony fruit.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are richly exuberant white Burgundies, like those from the southern districts of Burgundy (the Mâconnais).

This region offers some of the most reasonably priced wines, yet also delivers great quality, particularly in crus whose names appear alone on the label.

The single vineyard Saint-Véran Les Crèches from talented grower Domaine Saumaise-Michelin is a perfect place to start.

Wines from all over Burgundy could fit into our ‘polished and elegant’ category, but to simplify, focus on finding values from the rarified 'golden triangle' of white Burgundy villages: Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, and Chassagne-Montrachet.

These villages are renowned for the quality and complexity of their wines, but they can often be expensive; some, however, will fit into your Starter Pack.

One example is the Bourgogne Côte d'Or from Meursault producer Michel Bouzereau.

Although they are grown outside the area for village-level wines, they still show some of their noble character.

Where and when are you drinking?

A final consideration is time and place. White Burgundy is incredibly versatile, so don't be afraid to mix it up.

In a restaurant, the tried-and-true pairings could be Chablis with shellfish or lighter fish such as sole.

The wines of the Côte d’Or can accompany more substantial dishes such as roast chicken, pork, or duck, and the exuberantly fruity wines of the Mâconnais are well suited to spicier food such as Indian or Chinese.

To answer the perennial question ‘when to drink?’, one must leave it to personal preference, and many inexpensive white Burgundies drink well on release.

The best of the premier cru wines, however, need some time to digest the oak used in their ageing, and warrant up to a decade of cellaring, while the top grand cru whites can easily age for 50 years.

Once you know the ‘who, what, where, and when’ of Burgundy, you won’t need any help deciding ‘why’, since these wines are among the most enjoyable whites produced anywhere.

Your White Burgundy starter pack

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Chardonnay is firmly established as the world’s most popular white wine, but it faced an existential crisis in the 2000s.

First, wine lovers started to revolt against the heavily oaked, buttery, high-alcohol Chardonnay that was coming out of Australia and California. The ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) backlash gathered pace, and many drinkers switched to Italian Pinot Grigio or New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Then came the 2008 financial crisis, which ravaged the global economy. Wine consumption fell sharply, leaving Chardonnay producers facing an uncertain future.

That’s when Rick Bakas, a social media pioneer within the wine trade, created International Chardonnay Day. The idea was to boost sales and to push back against the ABC trend.

Why is International Chardonnay Day in May?

Bakas chose to host the annual celebration on the Thursday before Memorial Day, which is the unofficial start of the American summer. It’s a public holiday in the US, so International Chardonnay Day coincides with a long weekend, which often features outdoor parties.

The event proved remarkably successful. It paved the way for #CabernetDay later that year, and the format has been widely copied ever since.

Scroll down to discover 15 top-scoring Chardonnays

Chardonnay's spiritual home

Chardonnay is now back in fashion, and it’s easily the world’s bestselling white wine. A new generation of producers in Australia, California and South Africa has embraced restraint, creating leaner wines that display greater elegance and balance.

Yet Burgundy remains Chardonnay’s spiritual home. The grape takes its name from a tiny village in the Mâconnais region of southern Burgundy, where it originated.

Burgundy produces everything from the lean, steely whites of Chablis to the rich wines of the Côte de Beaune, including Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. These are widely regarded as the world’s finest white wines, but some New World producers give their Burgundian counterparts a run for their money.

Chardonnay is also one of the three grapes permitted in Champagne, along with Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. It’s the only grape used in Blanc de Blancs Champagne, producing some of the most elegant sparkling wines in the world.

Whether you prefer a bold, oaky white from California, a crisp glass of Chablis or a Blanc de Blancs Champagne, International Chardonnay Day is the perfect opportunity to celebrate this iconic grape.

Must-try Chardonnays: 15 top international picks from DWWA 2025

Argentina

Bemberg Estate Wines, El Tomillo Estate La Linterna, Gualtallary, Tupungato, Mendoza 2023
Platinum, 97 points
Exhibiting striking Gualtallary character with luminous pear, apple and lime fruit which cascades bounteously over a flinty, wet stone mineral core. Alert and intense with a fine bead of succulent acidity and a very long, stylish finish. Alcohol 13.5%

Australia

Wirra Wirra, The 12th Man Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills, South Australia 2024
Best in Show, 97 points
Adelaide Hills Chardonnay has made five appearances in our Best in Show selection, one more than Western Australia’s Margaret River has notched up; these are clearly landmark regions not just in national but also global terms for Chardonnay-lovers. The struck-match note so prized in Australia is apparent here – but subtly so; look out for a sweetly leafy charm, too, and a soft creaminess from finely judged barrel-fermentation. It hasn’t had long in bottle yet, so its aromatic harmony and seamlessness was another factor in seducing our panels. You could call it mouthfilling in terms of texture and flavour expression but relatively delicate and light on its feet, by contrast, in terms of weight and alcohol charge. These vineyards are indeed ‘up in the Hills’, remember, where ripeness is neither assured nor rapid. The wine’s grain and finesse reflect a full season on the vine – and its producer’s careful harvesting and handling techniques. Alc 12.5%

Brokenwood, Indigo Vineyard Chardonnay, Beechworth, Victoria 2023
Platinum, 97 points
Extraordinary layers of salted lime curd, peanut brittle and green apples brim under the nose and weave into the fresh, buttery texture. Pristine and focused with rippling herbs and flinty notes that glide towards the finish line. Alc 12.5%

Deep Woods Estate, Reserve Chardonnay, Margaret River, Western Australia 2023
Platinum, 97 points
The epitome of style and finesse, tremoring with white blossom, lemon sherbet, red apple and gently toasted oak and chiselled by a flinty mineral backbone and zesty seam of bright acidity. Very long and precise. Alc 13%

France

Jean-Marc Brocard, Bougros, Chablis Grand Cru, Burgundy 2023
Best in Show, 97 points
Our third outing for a Chablis Grand Cru in our Best in Show selection, but it’s the first for a vintage in the 2020s, and the first for a Bougros, too (our previous picks have come from Valmur and Les Clos). The Co-Chairs remarked on the relative generosity of style of this 2023 example, but that’s almost a truism for the Grands Crus today; what marked this wine out from its peers was the fact that the beloved ‘sour’ note to the fruit (praised by Hugh Johnson fifty years ago) is still clearly apparent here, as is the textural depth and interest that marks out all the best Chablis, whether from Premier or Grand Cru sites. A classic, then – but also a welcoming Grand Cru Chablis, one with a wide smile. It has as much deliciousness as it does finesse, and this is a vintage best enjoyed before too long rather than stowed away for your children. Alc 13%

Château De La Crée, Les Gravières, Santenay 1er Cru, Burgundy 2022
Platinum, 97 points
Heavenly butterscotch on toast amplified by a swell of delectable ripe stone fruit and graceful white flowers. Generous and structured with a supple texture and nourishing acidity which flows through to the long, savoury finish. Alc 13%

Domaine Prieur-Brunet, La Maladière, Santenay 1er Cru, Burgundy 2022
Platinum, 97 points
A luxurious array of plump stone fruit, juicy pear and a scattering of salt flakes diffuses over the plush vanilla oak core and radiates through the delightful lime peel acidity. Brimming with charisma and fervour. Alc 13%

Boyer Martenot, En L'ormeau, Meursault, Burgundy 2022
Gold 96, points
Distinguished layers of cedar, hazelnut and white plum flesh lavish the palate and melt into the ethereal freshness of acidity. Savoury and moreish on the finish. Alc 13%

Domaine Du Chardonnay, Paradis, Chablis, Burgundy 2021
Gold, 96 points
Glowing with ripe lemon fruit with an underscore of briny purity which sails across the vivid vein of acidity and onto the mouth-filling, creamy yoghurt texture. Alc 12.5%

Maison Champy, Pernand Vergelesses En Caradeux, Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru, Burgundy 2022
Gold, 96 points
Gorgeous melon and peach, honey and toast aromas with a decadence of crushed stones and lemon peel to enliven. Rich and generous with a crunchy green apple acidity. Alc 13.5%

Anne De Joyeuse, Very Chardonnay, IGP Haute Vallée de l'Aude, Languedoc-Roussillon 2024
Gold, 95 points
Scrumptious notes of peach, pear and candied lemon bond with the vanilla pastry creaminess that unfolds over the palate. Long and splendid with a verbena finish. Alc 13%

Italy

Cantina Kurtatsch, Freienfeld Chardonnay, Alto Adige / Südtirol Riserva, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol 2022
Platinum, 97 points
Spectacular nutmeg, vanilla and Crème Brûlée characters pervaded with flashes of zesty citrus peel and fresh cut grass. Honeyed and rich on the palate with an intense mineral backbone and lithe acidity. Oozing poise and charisma. Alc 14%

South Africa

De Grendel, Op Die Berg Chardonnay Ceres Plateau 2024
Gold, 96 points
Vibrant crushed rocks, flint and chalk pierce through fresh citrus, apple and apricot flavours, with a nervy acidity and appetising texture to lift the finish. Alc 13.5%

Thamnus Wines, Chardonnay, Overberg 2022
Gold, 96 points
A banquet of sumptuous fruit: mangoes, melons, peaches, nectarines and citrus ripple over the mouth-wateringly juicy texture, invigorated by a flinty, mineral grip. Seamless and effortless. Alc 13.5%

United States

Cupere, Faces, Sonoma Coast, California 2022
Platinum, 97 points
Stand-out charry oak, rich ripe yellow pear and apple fruit bedeck this gorgeously creamy, sleek Chardonnay which oozes panache and charm. Utterly delicious with its youthful bright acidity, finely-tuned texture and candied citrus finish which lasts and lasts. Alc 13.2%

Search all DWWA 2025 results

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Sonoma County is huge - more than 4,000km2, stretching from the Pacific coast to the mountains. It’s twice the size of its next-door neighbour Napa Valley, and larger than the state of Rhode Island.

You would think that such a wide geographical range would translate into diversity in its wines. And it does.

Yet the conversation about Chardonnay here keeps recycling the same two talking points: the buttery-oaky California stereotype and austere, overly restrained wines.

Ironically, given this duopoly of opinion, Chardonnay is considered by winemakers to be a ‘blank canvas’ – malleable enough to be shaped in the cellar, but capable of deeply expressing terroir.

A Chardonnay that tastes saline and sharp on the West Sonoma Coast turns richer and rounder 15km inland in Russian River.

Mountain sites add structure due to the elevation and tension from rocky soils, while wines from San Pablo Bay-cooled Los Carneros tend toward softer textures and freshness.

With more than 20 sub-appellations in the county, that’s not even close to the full picture.

Listening to the terroir

But expressing such a range hasn’t always been the focus. ‘There’s been a shift in the last 10 years,’ says Kristina Shideler, winemaker at Stonestreet Wines in Healdsburg.

The change isn’t just technical – less oak, lower alcohol, more restraint – it’s philosophical.

‘There is now a willingness among Sonoma County producers to let their sites dictate the style,’ says Jasmine Hirsch of Hirsch Vineyards.

This meaningful change has brought a sharper focus on single vineyards, the incredible diversity of the region’s soils and farming practices that are more attuned to the land.

‘We have more soil types than all of France, plus an extreme variety of microclimates,’ says Hirsch.

Has the message broken through? ‘I still hear people say, “I don’t like California Chardonnay, but I like yours”,’ Hirsch admits.

Even if some of the stigma lingers, Sonoma’s diversity has never been clearer. And the wines have never tasted better.

Shideler is confident: ‘Get over everything that you think about Sonoma Chardonnay. We’re in a new wave.’

Sonoma Chardonnay: 20 top picks to explore today

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If one vintage could make the case for drinking Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay, 2024 would be it.

An exceptional season that delivered perfect fruit ripeness without sacrificing the region’s signature natural acidity, 2024 will already be in the cellars of those who know – and for those who don’t, the quality-to-price ratio alone should be temptation enough…

Though best be quick.

‘It was an incredible harvest from a quality point of view,’ says viticulture consultant Ollie Powrie, ‘but tempered by the fact that yields were so low.’

This was a legacy of disrupted flowering and, many suspect, a delayed vine response to the extreme conditions of Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.

Matt Kirby, chief winemaker at Clearview Estate, draws a comparison that will please collectors.

‘2024 reminded me of 2021 – smaller crops, but great brightness and intensity,’ he says. Phil Brodie, senior winemaker at Te Mata Estate, concurs, placing 2024 alongside the excellent 2021, 2014 and 2007 vintages.

‘All rich wines with focusing acidity that gives tension, energy and the ability to age gracefully,’ he explains.

With two further excellent vintages following immediately on its heels, there has rarely been a better time for wine drinkers to pay attention.

Evolving quality

The 2024 successes are really the culmination of a longer story. Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay quickly shed its early opulent, golden, heavily oaked incarnations to establish itself as a region capable of consistently delivering fresh, texturally complex, ageworthy wines.

The shift reflects both evolving winemaking philosophies and deeper understanding of the region’s remarkably diverse terroir; the legacy of four major river systems that criss-cross its subregions.

Given its relatively compact size, Hawke’s Bay’s terroir and climatic variations are notable, elongating the Chardonnay harvest across a couple of months. The variety accounts for 1,034ha of the region’s 4,574ha of vineyards.

Subregional styles

Of the main subregions, the Gimblett Gravels’ free-draining, heat-retaining riverbed soils tend to produce weightier, structured styles with yellow-flesh stone fruit generosity.

The nearby Bridge Pa Triangle, with heavier red clay-loam and slightly cooler conditions tends to be more textural, restrained and mineral.

Closer to the coast, the limestone/clay soils around Havelock North and Te Awanga provide chalky grip and savoury complexity, while cooler inland sites such as Mangatahi promote white-flesh stone fruit, citrus and silky textures.

Further south and inland, the cool, limestone hills of Central Hawke's Bay are just starting to be explored.

Many wines draw fruit from across the region but there are substantial, and increasing, numbers of single subregion and single vineyard bottlings.

If there is a common regional thread, it's a dense core of ripe peachy fruit and defined, juicy natural acidity.

Owning the Chardonnay story

In many ways Hawke's Bay is something of an anomaly in the New Zealand wine landscape, producing relatively little Sauvignon Blanc and only small amounts of Pinot Noir.

The sunny, dry maritime climate suits an impressively wide array of varieties, and is one of the few New Zealand regions that reliably delivers impressive Syrah and Bordeaux reds.

But Chardonnay is increasingly what the region is hanging its hat on, now hosting a semi-annual symposium dedicated to the grape.

Viticulturist and AONZ co-owner Steve Smith MW observes that the variety has always been a significant part of the story for most Hawkes Bay producers, where other varieties have come and gone.

But he adds: ‘Hawke’s Bay has not owned its Chardonnay story until now. I think it has taken a while for producers to realise that being able to do lots of things well is not a value proposition and Chardonnay can be something that we can do really well.’

Tony Bish, who has made Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay for over 40 years, and now makes only Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay at his eponymous urban winery, points out a further advantage.

‘You can consistently make really good Chardonnay; even in difficult years such as 2023, the wines still looked great, whereas the trickier years can really punish the reds.’

In the winery

Winemaking is typically hands-off, largely centred around whole-bunch pressing, high solids and indigenous yeasts, fermented and matured in French oak.

Increasingly older and larger formats of oak are being used, while concrete, clay and tank also abound.

Malolactic fermentation is a common temper for the region’s bright acidity, though it’s generally used with restraint.

It’s not often you see ‘buttery’ in a tasting note anymore. Even the strong reductive characters that were briefly fashionable have settled into a happier place of struck match and flint.

Chris Scott, chief winemaker of Church Road, believes: ‘Chardonnay, more so than any other variety in Hawke’s Bay, makes itself as long as you look after it in the vineyard.’

Delivering great value

The top wines have a proven track record for cellaring, with a sweet spot around a decade or so, where the primary citrus and stonefruit gives way to toasty, savoury complexity.

They remain considerably underpriced for the quality, particularly when compared to their white Burgundy peers, and top Chardonnays from the US and Australia.

As Brodie notes somewhat ruefully: ‘The best wines are so undervalued – great as a wine drinker, but tough as a producer.’

Despite growing positive critical attention, Hawke’s Bay is yet to enjoy the breakout moment that, say, Central Otago Pinot Noir has enjoyed.

But the 2024 vintage may just be the year that changes things…

Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay: 12 brilliant bottles to try

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Set up at the Kimpton Vintage Hotel in downtown Portland, I spent two days tasting the final bottled samples from nearly every lot on offer at the upcoming Willamette Valley Wine Auction (13-14 May, 2026).

I was there in my capacity as Decanter's Acting North America Regional Editor and Napa Valley Correspondent, assigning ratings and tasting notes to the auction lots.

And I realise this might be controversial. Auction lots are special blends, often culled from a single barrel or from an assemblage of the best barrels from a single vineyard site or top fruit sources.

They are bottled in 5-10 case lots, for the auction, intended to raise money for a great cause, one that usually supports the local community.

The lot is presented, paddles fly, a winning bid is announced, and these special wines disappear onto a high-end restaurant list, a fine wine retailer's shelves, or into a private cellar.

So, why rate them? Eventually, they resurface, but with nothing much about them beyond perhaps the price it sold for at auction.

I myself have been the recipient of many auction wines, and try as I may to find information on them, I usually can’t.

So, for posterity, a reference point, and to spark some conversation around rating auction wines, below are my scores and tasting notes for the 2024 vintage bottlings offered at the 2026 Willamette Valley Wine Auction.

Initial impressions of the 2024 vintage for Willamette Valley

The 2024 growing season in the Willamette Valley was, by most accounts, close to ideal.

Slow, steady ripening with bright sunny days and highs largely in the low-to-mid 20°C (70s°F), and night time temperatures dipping to the mid-10s°C (50s°F), allowed for long hang times and retention of bright, natural acidity with complex flavour development.

A brief mid-summer heat spike nudged sugars along, ripening tannin without taxing acidity.

The result is a classic Willamette profile of crunchy, ripe, vibrant fruit, modest alcohols largely in the 12.9%-13.9% range, with high natural acidity.

The Pinot Noirs are bold with firm tannic structures, the Chardonnays are striking, tension-driven, and layered, and the sparklers are bright and focused.

As one winemaker put it, this is, ‘a vintage that collectors and wine lovers will want to secure for their cellars’.

A decade of community spirit in Willamette Valley

The auction is entering its tenth year, and Executive Director Morgen McLaughlin describes it as ‘one of the Willamette Valley's most important long-term platforms, not just an annual event’.

It has allowed producers to showcase rare, small-production, library, and collaborative wines that, as McLaughlin continues, 'may not fit into a standard tasting or sales channel, giving them a way to express what makes their vineyards, winemaking, and AVA stories distinctive’.

'Just as importantly, the Auction has reinforced the collaborative spirit of the Valley.'

Over the past decade, more than $5 million has been raised to support the Willamette Valley Wineries Association's marketing, education, and brand-building programmes.

In 2025 alone, more than 80 trade bidders from 35 states and three countries participated.

This year's two-day format reflects the auction’s maturity: Day One (‘Whimsy’) welcomes collectors and consumers for an insider's look at the 2024 vintage; Day Two (‘Wonder’) is a trade-only deep dive with producers on hand.

What struck me across two days of tasting wasn't just the quality of the wines but the positive attitude of the producers behind them.

James Frey, winemaker, proprietor of Trisaetum, and prolific artist (see The James Frey Collection), described the annual auction as evidence of Willamete Valley’s, ‘strong collegial spirit’ and the ‘great group of people who still believe a rising tide lifts all boats’.

Acid-etched purity

Frey produced a sparkling wine for the auction, as did Rollin Soles of ROCO, who has been making bubbles in the valley for four decades.

I found the Willamette sparklings vivid and laser-focused, with ultra-frothy, airy mousses.

‘After 40 years, I still believe the Willamette is the finest spot in the New World for sparkling,’ Soles told me.

‘Growing above the 45th parallel means later harvests, naturally high acidity, and grapes that retain higher protein levels, which directly aids bubble retention.’

Frey added that the ultra-cool sites where Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier struggle to ripen for still wines create ideal conditions for sparkling wine.

As for the still wines: the Pinots are gorgeously pure-fruited, often nuanced by that dusty, red volcanic mineral character drawn from the region's soils, while in the whites it creates a complexity I personally couldn't get enough of.

I'm still thinking about Bethel Heights' Swan Song Chardonnay, among my highest-scoring lots, crafted from own-rooted old Wente clone vines that also produced High Wire – former North America Editor Clive Pursehouse's only 100-point wine during his entire Decanter tenure.

When I asked winemaker Ben Casteel what made those vines and site so special, his response was deeply personal: ‘That it took my father's entire career and the first 10 years of mine to produce something special is a tremendous testament to perseverance.’

At least one more vintage – a 2025 High Wire Chardonnay – is coming before, tragically, the vines succumb to phylloxera.

A note on the scores

Full auction lot scores and tasting notes are available below. They have been marked with a score range which is mentioned in the note.

The Willamette Valley Wine Auction takes place May 13-14, 2026.

To the producers and buyers: no matter my scores, each wine here is genuinely exceptional, and I hope that comes through in the tasting notes.

Top wines from this year's Willamette Valley Wine Auction

All 50+ of Jonathan's notes on the Willamette Valley Wine Auction wines can be found here.

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A trailblazing state

While still young by the standards of the world’s great winemaking areas, here in the Willamette Valley, ‘old vine’ carries a certain gravity.

These aren’t the gnarled centenarians of European wine estates, or the head-trained vines from the late 19th century that one may find in Sonoma, California, but rare, original plantings from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

They’re vines that witnessed the improbable birth of Oregon Pinot Noir and quietly shaped the reputation upon which the Willamette Valley now trades.

The trunks are thick, many of them dripping with moss, no matter the season. The bark peels back in long strips evocative of the surrounding forests of western red cedars.

These sites are a true regional treasure, planted on their own roots, they collectively represent a proverbial thumbing of the nose at the destructive aphid-like pest phylloxera.

Names such as Lett, Coury, Erath, Maresh, Adelsheim and Ponzi, among others, helped to lay down the early roots of Oregon Pinot Noir.

A quiet dialogue with the past plays out each season in clusters that seem to hold the valley’s origin story in every small, dark berry.

This is the story of some of the Willamette Valley’s original Pinot Noir vines – a selection that goes beyond the early epicentre in the Dundee Hills and reflects the regional diversity of the valley today.

The sites whose stories are told here are home to old vines that are still producing some of the region’s most important wines.

The original vines: 1965

The first two plantings in the Willamette Valley happened in the same year and, in fact, at one point, those plots were one vineyard.

The story of the Willamette Valley’s very first vineyards reads like a riddle, as The Eyrie Vineyards’ Jason Lett – son of the Willamette’s original pioneer, David Lett – explains: ‘The date of establishment is tricky, because he planted the vines in 1965 but didn’t move them to the present location until 1966.

'So we give 1965 as the foundation of the enterprise, and the vines at Eyrie are 1965-planted, but the Eyrie Vineyard itself, in Dundee, was established in 1966.’

The other name that gets mentioned alongside David Lett’s is Charles Coury.

If Lett was the first to plant Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley (and he was), Coury was second.

Lett planted vines at a nursery site near Corvallis, southwest of Salem, on 22 February 1965, according to entries in his personal journal. And then, in April that year, he planted vines for Coury at the same nursery.

Both men then moved their vines north. Lett planted in the hills just south of the town of Dundee, and Coury planted in Forest Grove, west of Portland, at what is now David Hill Vineyards & Winery.

The story of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir began in 1965.

At Eyrie, just shy of four acres (1.6ha) of the old plantings remain, including the iconic South Block planted a couple of years later, in 1968, as well as the first commercial Pinot Gris planting in North America.

And at David Hill, 14 acres (5.6ha) of old vines are still producing, from Pinot Noir to Alsace white varieties.

Chehalem Mountain Vineyard: 1969

Dick Erath is best known for the eponymous Erath winery in the Dundee Hills.

There, he partnered with the pioneering Knudsen family in the mid-1970s, but his first vineyard was planted further to the north.

High on a shoulder of the southern edges of the Chehalem Mountains, just across the treeline from Ribbon Ridge AVA (American Viticultural Area) in the northernmost reaches of what is today’s Willamette Valley appellation, Erath planted his first foray into Oregon Pinot Noir.

In 1969, this became the third vineyard planted in the region, when so much of this extensive wooded area still felt like a long shot for fine wine.

Perhaps Erath was already thinking about elevation, exposure and the kind of marginal growing conditions that might coax nuance from the Pinot Noir variety.

The Chehalem Mountain Vineyard was put down on the steep slopes of ancient volcanic soils before notions of appellation boundaries were even conceived of here.

This is a low-yielding site, where the old, gnarled vines today offer an array of clones, from Pommard and Wädenswil to Calera and Dijon, providing a diversity of expression within the vineyard itself.

00 Wines, renowned for its Chardonnay programme (see tasting notes), has taken a particular shine to this old site, and the producer is using the fruit of all of the remaining three acres (1.2ha) of the old-vine 1969 plantings for its single-vineyard Pinot Noir.

‘Working with this heritage fruit is a true honour,’ says 00 founder Chris Hermann. ‘We ferment this Pinot Noir, 100% in Italian terracotta amphorae from Tuscany, after the berries have been destemmed by hand. The fermentation is semi-carbonic.

‘This old-vine wine is aromatic, pretty, lifted and not as concentrated as one would expect from older vines, which makes this block very special. The bunches are very small, with onyx-coloured skins, yet the resulting wine is ethereal and pretty.’

Maresh Vineyard: 1970

Perched high in the Dundee Hills, the roots of the Maresh Vineyard go all the way back to 1970, when Jim (Sr) and Loie Maresh planted vines here, at up to about 230m above the valley.

The Maresh family farm had long been established for hazelnuts and prunes, and the decision to plant grapes marked a quiet pivot toward what was then an uncertain future for wine in the region.

‘My grandparents bought this farm in 1959 with no farming experience,’ third-generation grower and winemaker Jim Maresh of Arterberry Maresh in Dundee tells me.

‘It was cherries, prunes and hazelnuts that taught them how to farm. The story they liked to tell was that they were sitting on 200 tons of unsold prunes when Dick Erath came up the driveway.’

Erath told them their property was perfect for Pinot Noir – his earnestness and all those unsold prunes made the choice easy.

‘They jumped right in with a small plot of Pinot Noir at his suggestion in 1970. The fruit did well, and over time a block of fruit trees or hazelnuts would be pulled out, and more vines would be planted.’

Farming at that elevation brought its own challenges: cooler temperatures, exposure to wind and a growing season that demanded adaptability.

But those same conditions would prove critical in shaping the vineyard’s identity, producing fruit marked by balance and a kind of lifted, red-toned character that would become a hallmark of Dundee Hills Pinot Noir.

‘For me, it’s not an outlier for the Dundee Hills,’ says Jim Jr. ‘It’s high-tone, red and pretty. No big tannins, but elegance and refinement. Maresh fruit is really long in terms of holding its acidity in ripe, extended growing seasons. It’s at 750 feet (230m), so it’s high-elevation for the appellation. Maresh is, in some ways, the archetype of the Dundee Hills.’

The original farm was 140 acres (56ha), and today the Arterberry-Maresh estate totals 20 acres (8ha); Jim Jr farms about two acres of the remaining original plantings from the 1970s.

Ponzi Vineyard: 1970

The Ponzi family’s original estate vineyard, on the site of a former strawberry field, was planted in 1970 and sits among the Willamette Valley’s foundational sites, dating back to a time when conviction preceded clarity.

This initial plot, among the first five to be planted, was put down on the valley floor.

‘Though the Ponzis’ first planting proved to be viable in the production of all varieties planted, the family recognised quality could be pushed further,’ says Ponzi winemaker Max Bruening.

‘It wasn’t quite what they were seeking. To date, the Chardonnay (Clone 108 Wente/Davis) remains a staple of Ponzi’s sparkling blanc de blancs production, with a small percentage allocated to our still Chardonnay. Pinot Noir is sourced exclusively for our blanc de noir.’

The Ponzis, along with other members of the Willamette’s pioneering wine scene at the time, were a collaborative bunch.

‘In 1975, as part of the Oregon Winemakers Project, an effort spearheaded by Dick Ponzi, Dick Erath and Oregon State University, plantings were conducted to assess which clones could be viable for the area at that time,’ Bruening explains.

‘They were tasked with finding land, planting a vineyard, growing grapes, assessing the outcome, vinifying, blending, tracking, reporting and repeating.’

This early experimental site eventually became a part of Ponzi’s estate, the two-acre (0.8ha) Abetina Vineyard, which the family formally acquired in 1981.

The 1975 planting includes 12 different clones of own-rooted Pinot Noir and has helped inform the future of the Willamette Valley.

Hyland Vineyard: 1971

Originally planted in 1971 (and continuing through the late 1990s) on a south-facing bench in the foothills of the Coast Range, the Hyland Vineyard stands as one of the Willamette Valley’s earliest and, to this day, most versatile sites, known as much for its Riesling as for the distinctive clones of Pinot Noir.

Unique at the time, it was planted not by winemakers but growers, a collaborative effort by four families: Kreimeyer, Merkley, Welch and Smith.

Hyland began with an ambitious vision: to plant a large-scale, professionally farmed site that could supply fruit to the region’s fledgling wineries.

A total of 185 acres (74ha) were planted across the windswept knolls of what is now the McMinnville AVA.

The site itself sits exposed to the Van Duzer Corridor, northwest of Salem, where afternoon winds sweep in from the Pacific and cool the vines through the long days of late summer.

Early plantings included a mix of Pinot Noir selections that predated the modern clonal era, perhaps most notably the Coury clone, which has long been a bit mysterious.

Some say its origins lie in Alsace, others Germany, but who really knows?

A living archive

Half a century later, the vineyard reads like a living archive of Oregon’s first generation of viticulture.

Many of the original blocks remain, their thick trunks and modest yields a reminder of an era when nearly everything about farming Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley was a little bit experimental.

Evan Martin, the winemaker at Martin Woods, near McMinnville city, has delivered the top Pinot Noir from my past vintage reports more than once, and each time it was his Hyland Vineyard bottling.

‘The Hyland Pinot Noir, as I find it, prominently exhibits aromas of forest undergrowth and mossy earth – so coveted by lovers of traditional red Burgundy,’ says Martin.

‘Which is married to delicate florals and red fruit, with a silken palate that lingers seemingly forever.

‘As the vineyard has come of age, the warming trend of the last 30 years has shifted this originally very marginal cool climate to pitch-perfect growing conditions, leading to one of the truly unique ‘grand cru’ expressions of Pinot Noir in Oregon, a Chambolle-Musigny-esque personality that captives with the power of delicacy – defined by the subtle imprint that the wine makes on the sense memory.’

Oregon’s old-vine legacy in bottle today

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The general consensus holds that Californian Chardonnay is at its best in those areas where cooler climes and Pacific Ocean breezes temper hot days.

And there’s no shortage of winemakers who baulk at the idea of Napa-grown Chardonnay, seeing it as too warm.

The reality, however, is that it can be done. And done well.

Chardonnay is a variety that bears little tolerance for excess heat, and it can easily tip into the realm of plush, soft, full-bodied white wine lacking in tension.

Grown in the right sites in Napa Valley, and in the right hands, the results can be as riveting as top white Burgundy – as pleasure-packed, as contemplative, and as potentially ageworthy.

Yes, I said it, but can I back it up?

Looking back over the 8,000+ wines I’ve reviewed for Decanter in the last five years, I’ve given some pretty high scores to a handful of Chardonnays that defy expectations.

And here’s their little secret: Location, location, location.

A reliable source

Los Carneros, a sub-appellation spanning Napa and Sonoma counties, south-west of the city of Napa, remains the most reliable source of world-class Chardonnay in Napa Valley.

Here, the cooling influence of San Pablo Bay draws fog and wind deep into the southern reaches of the valley, slowing ripening and preserving natural acidity.

It is no coincidence that some of my top scorers below originate from the Hyde and Hudson vineyards, sites that have proven capable of producing Chardonnay with both richness and tension.

David Ramey’s Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay shows the site’s classic profile: layered orchard fruit, citrus oil, and a firm acid spine shaped as much by picking decisions as by place.

David Ramey has long championed acid balance over opulence in his Chardonnays, and so many of his Chardonnays are still bright and lively a decade after bottling because of it.

Back in 2019, during a tasting of his Chardonnays, he felt compelled to remind me of something I imagine he has had to repeat often.

‘It’s a dream that Old World is somehow better or more natural. Do the lab analysis. Stop romanticising things you don’t understand – great producers are great no matter where they are, just as with film and art. Why do we value Château Latour? Experience.’

Ramey has been making wine for more than five decades. In the grand scheme of California winemaking, that’s experience.

Tor Kenward, who works with winemaker Jeff Ames, also makes a stunning Chardonnay from Hyde called Cuvée Susan, which is more textural with extended élevage bringing a deeper mid-palate weight, yet still anchored by Carneros freshness.

A Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay from Nid Tissé, produced by Marie-Laure Ammons, offers another interpretation – more tightly coiled, mineral-driven, and inspired by her upbringing in rural Limousin and by her own winemaking approach, shaped by work for the likes of Philippe Melka, Julien Fayard, and Pierre Seillan.

Do the right thing

And then there is Hyde’s neighbour, Hudson Vineyards, established by Lee Hudson in 1981.

Lee decided to start making wine in 2004, and he asked Chardonnay legend John Konsgaard (who I have yet to taste with, and hence, none of his wines make this list), to make sure, ‘I didn’t do anything stupid,’ Hudson told me while riding a four-wheeler around his nearly 2,000-acre ranch.

‘I wanted to make Chablis. And John said: "Well, move to France. We don’t make that here. We make wine that represents the sun."'

Hudson’s site, with its shallow Hair Clay Loam soils, with a mix of volcanic and marine sediments, and exposure to the Bay’s marine influence, consistently produces fruit with ample concentration and structure – with the style idling between power and finesse, largely determined by picking decisions.

Heading further in

But Carneros is only part of the story. In Coombsville, just east and south of the city of Napa, cooler temperatures and volcanic soils create a markedly different expression of Chardonnay.

Coombsville’s persistent morning fog and afternoon breezes delay ripening, allowing for extended hang time without sugar accumulation racing ahead of phenolic development.

The result here is a wine of remarkable detail – citrus, stone fruit, saline mineral tones – held together by a natural acidity that is so bracing it’ll take the paint off the deck of your boat.

Nearby, in the western Oak Knoll District, the Linda Vista Vineyard Chardonnay from Matthiasson Wines illustrates another model for success.

Steve Matthiasson has built his reputation on restraint – earlier picking, moderate alcohol, minimal intervention – and the Linda Vista bottling reflects that philosophy.

Oak Knoll’s slightly cooler temperatures compared to mid-valley sites allow for freshness, but it is Matthiasson’s farming and timing that define the clarity and lift of his Chardonnay.

Then there are the wines that challenge the assumption that Chardonnay belongs only in Napa’s cooler southern or low-lying zones.

On stony ground

Stony Hill, established by the McCrea family in 1943 on the eastern slopes of Spring Mountain above St. Helena, remains one of Napa Valley’s defining Chardonnay estates.

The 2023 Chardonnay, drawn from vines planted in 1988 using massal selections from the estate’s original Old Wente plantings, shows classic Stony Hill restraint underpinned by a firm, saline acid structure that signals long ageing potential.

Similarly, winemaker Chris Carpenter’s W.S. Keyes Vineyard Chardonnay from La Jota demonstrates what is possible across the valley, on Howell Mountain.

Mountain fruit tends to ripen more slowly, with smaller berries and thicker skins, resulting in wines with greater concentration and grip.

Back on the valley floor, but pushing ripeness boundaries, Pahlmeyer’s Savoir Faire Chardonnay from Hyde Vineyard shows how clonal selections matter too – the 2024 release is entirely Calera clone.

The Calera selection is a low-yielding clone, producing small clusters and berries that deliver naturally high acidity and taut minerality.

And then, there’s Old Wente selections – a heritage clone marked by millerandage (‘hens and chicks’) that produces large and smaller berries (the small are typically seedless), contributing to richness, textural depth, and a broad, creamy mid-palate with ripe orchard fruit.

Putting it all together

Above all, what unites these exceptional Chardonnay wines is not style, certainly not typicity, which is something I don’t believe in, but a combination of factors: slightly cooler climes, water-retaining, yet well-draining soils, good aspect with protected pockets that can mitigate afternoon heat, and farming to ensure canopy management, yields, and soil health all influencing how those Chardonnay berries develop.

Get these elements right, and Napa Chardonnay can result in one of the best wines you’ve ever tasted in your life.

Oh, I didn’t do the obligatory Rombauer ‘cougar juice’ mention, so here it is: I’d happily drink a glass of Rombauer’s Carneros Chardonnay any day.

Listen: If you haven’t tasted it in recent years, you won’t believe how that wine is now built on – wait for it! – balanced ripeness and more nuanced oak.

My goodness, it's delicious.

Below are 12 brilliant Chardonnays from Napa that you’ll want to stuff in your cellar or wine fridge.

My 12 all-time Napa Chardonnays

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Setting the scene

The masterclass coincided with publication in Decanter’s March issue of an interview with Barrett, where he recalled the early days of Montelena and the impact that the victory of the estate’s 1973 Chardonnay at the legendary competition had – both on Montelena itself and on California more widely.

After a reception to welcome guests – where Montelena’s only non-Napa wine was served, the 2022 vintage Potter Valley Riesling, made from Mendocino fruit – the masterclass proper commenced.

This featured three vintages (2020, 2014 and 2009) of the famous Chardonnay, all poured from magnum, and three vintages of its Estate Cabernet Sauvignon: the incredibly youthful and exuberant 2021; the ‘Goldilocks’ 2017 vintage, where everything went right; and the fascinatingly evolved 2007.

Montelena's territory

The pair explained that the Calistoga AVA, where the estate is situated, at the foot of California’s Mount Helena (hence Montelena), has unique properties.

Located at the northern end of Napa, it’s both a valley appellation and a mountain appellation, said Barrett. (It’s also a great place to visit, he added, more relaxed and welcoming than some other parts of the county.)

The Montelena fruit grows on geologically diverse soils and enjoys the afternoon sun.

And yet despite the obvious California generosity of fruit flavour, there is a hallmark acid line to these wines that keeps them fresh for decades.

Also, explained Crafton, a marked sense of place and vintage.

‘We work hard on the winemaking side to make ourselves disappear,’ he said. ‘We want you to taste the character of the year, and the place.’

History makers

Bo Barrett was only 18 when his father Jim established Chateau Montelena in 1972, but remembers clearly the excitement when the team in California found out that the 1973 Chardonnay was the top-scoring white at the Judgement of Paris.

‘The phone was ringing off the hook, with everyone wanting to buy our wine,’ he recalled.

‘Without the Judgement of Paris, we’d just be a red wine estate, and it would have taken much longer for us to get to where we are today.’

The original intention was for the estate to produce a single wine, the Estate Cabernet, but it produced a Chardonnay at the start too, to help with cashflow.

After the triumph in Paris, it was inevitable that Chardonnay would take its place permanently alongside the Cabernet.

Chardonnay thankfully remains firmly in the fold today, and the estate has doubled down on its commitment to the grape, buying a new vineyard three miles south of the current one.

The winemaking style with the Chardonnay is to never use malolactic fermentation, and again this serves to accentuate the purity of fruit, the precision and the freshness.

‘At the end of the day, we want tasting our wines to make you happy,’ said Crafton. And judging by the audience reaction, and smiles as they left the class, the team at Montelena continues to achieve that goal.

The Montelena masterclass wines:

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A seismic tasting 50 years ago

When a small group of California wines triumphed over France’s finest at the 1976 Judgement of Paris, few could have imagined the global shockwave it would set in motion.

Staged by the late Steven Spurrier (Decanter Consultant Editor for 25 years), the tasting event was meant to be a bicentennial celebration, pitting upstart American producers against benchmark French estates.

Instead, it redefined the hierarchy of fine wine and altered the course of California’s future.

The result – Burgundy’s most esteemed whites being bested by a Napa Valley Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena (a bottle of which now sits in an exhibit in the Smithsonian in Washington, DC) – cemented not only the estate’s reputation but also the credibility of an entire region.

Half a century later, the story still reverberates.

The event remains a symbol of innovation, resilience and the restless spirit that continues to drive Napa Valley.

For Bo Barrett (current CEO and son of Jim Barrett, the late winery founder), who was just 18 when the winning 1973 Chardonnay was bottled, the tasting was a catalytic moment – one that transformed his family’s modest dream into a global legacy.

In this conversation, exclusive to Decanter, Barrett looks back on the early days of Montelena, his father Jim’s improbable leap from law to wine, and the unvarnished realities behind a victory that helped reshape the American viticultural dream.

Decanter, in conversation with Bo Barrett

You were only a teenager when your father bought Chateau Montelena in 1972. What do you remember about those early days?

I remember that it was all quite remarkable.

Two factors stand out in my mind that led my dad to Montelena. The Vietnam War was going really badly at the time, and top income tax rates in the US were extraordinarily high.

My dad was a real estate and tax attorney for a company that built malls around the world, and when he saw that President Nixon had introduced new incentives to revive American agriculture – which was struggling – he spotted an opportunity.

The administration had just expanded major investment tax credits and accelerated-depreciation rules for agricultural projects.

In effect, if you were a high earner, you could either hand a huge portion of your income over in taxes, or you could invest that same money into American agriculture instead.

My dad’s business partner always called Montelena ‘the tax dodge that got out of hand’.

Were you with him when he first set eyes on Montelena?

I was with him on the second trip.

My dad was a pilot, and we’d fly around together looking at pomegranate and citrus groves, cattle ranches, all these different things.

I was probably 17 when I came with him on his second trip to check out Chateau Montelena.

This lake was totally overgrown. It was a total jungle. The vineyards were completely run down.

When did you realise this wasn’t just a family project but might be your life’s work?

I didn’t know I was going to be a farmer until that first summer. I came up and started working in the vineyard and kind of just took to it.

The vineyard manager was an Italian-American named John Roll. He’d ploughed with a mule for Madame [Hélène] de Pins at Beaulieu vineyard.

He taught me how to hunt deer, collect abalone and forage for mushrooms – all this good stuff. He taught me the joy of the mason, which is the pride you take in a hard day’s work.

What do you remember about that famous 1973 Chardonnay around bottling time?

From the summer of 1973 and all the way to ’76, my whole family was here. The bottle that’s in the Smithsonian – I know I filled that bottle.

My brother Mike put the nitrogen on the bottle, and my little brother Kev put the bottles in the case. My whole family’s fingerprints are on that bottle.

Tell us about the day that Steven Spurrier visited the winery.

I remember [the winemaker] Mike Grgich being very nervous and making us get the cellar pristine, super-spiffy clean. It was a VIP tour, same as when Robert Mondavi was coming – everything had to shine.

We had to pull the magic disappearing act: all the staff go away, no one’s around. I wasn’t there watching Steven taste.

Mike probably sent me to the vineyard. Honestly, we didn’t pay that much attention until later.

What about when the results of the Paris tasting came in?

When the telegram came in, we were in the cellar working, filling barrels, and the doors were wide open.

Grgich was out in the gravel parking lot, dancing and waving this piece of paper and yelling, ‘We won! We won!’ So we turned off our pumps and walked out. We were all joining him in this little Yugoslavian victory dance.

It was a hell of a surprise. George Taber [then a Time magazine reporter and the only journalist present at the event, and subsequently author of the 2006 book on the topic] called my dad, and my dad gave him a quote. He didn’t want to insult the French: ‘Not bad for kids from the sticks.’

In what ways and how quickly did things change for Montelena after the article in Time came out?

It was immediate. Suddenly, we had distributors calling from all over the country.

The people who had said, ‘No, we don’t carry California wines’ the week before called us up and said, ‘Hey, we’d like to sell your wine.’ The phone was lighting up.

We didn’t have a general manager, but the California ‘attention’ didn’t change that much.

The first immediate change was that the rest of the country recognised that California was making good wine.

You’ve said before that the Judgement of Paris was a catalyst rather than a miracle. What do you mean by that?

All the ingredients were there: the land, the light, the people, the willingness to do the work.

If there had never been Prohibition, California would’ve buried Europe a century ago.

The most important thing is, it made quality such a driving force for everybody’s goal and mission.

So it had that drive towards improved quality, which then drove consumers to seek out a superior product. And so it became a self-perpetuating thing.

How do you see the next 50 years for Napa Valley?

It’s going to be as tough as the last 50. Work harder than anybody, pick the steep hill and keep climbing.

When you think about legacy, about Chateau Montelena’s place in history, what comes to mind?

I do think about what we’ve accomplished with just trying to do the right thing – to make something special out of a special place. The drive to express American excellence is what we’re the proudest of.

And I just hope that the people who fall in behind us in this business understand that you have to do the hard work and keep your nose to the grindstone and have the right philosophy, which is always to reward people’s faith.

They’re taking a bet on buying your product and your job is to make that bet pay off.

Three of my four grandparents were immigrants. The other was born in a covered wagon. No wine experience at all. The opportunity that was presented to us by this great country – it’s been a good thing.

We’re just quiet about it. People ask, ‘Are you going to retire?’ I say, hell no. I love what I do.

I’ve got a beautiful place, friendly people to work with and a fantastic crew. It’s a nice little ship. I don’t want to give it up.

Benchmark Napa: A taste of modern-day Montelena

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Paul Masson is often misremembered as a maker of California ‘jug wine’ and missed altogether for his outsized impact on California viticulture and the state's wine evolution.

It was the Burgundy-born Masson who brought Burgundian cuttings of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Burgundy to the Santa Cruz Mountains, specifically a site he planted in Saratoga, California, way back in 1896.

The vines, originally from Louis Latour, are among the groundbreaking Pinot Noir plantings that would lay the genetic groundwork for many of the now-famous ‘California heritage clones.’

Famous names like Mt Eden, Swan and Martini have their origins in Masson’s early plantings.

The Santa Cruz Mountains, however, have not become identified with a single variety.

Instead, it is this region’s great diversity that radiates, and perhaps makes it somewhat of an enigma in terms of how consumers and even wine collectors understand the place.

Cabernet, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah shine together here in ways that strike me as completely unique to a cool California coastal appellation.

A cool all its own

So what is it about the Santa Cruz Mountains that allows it to sufficiently ripen Cabernet and Syrah crating elegant expressions of these varieties, alongside the more delicate Burgundian varieties of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay?

‘There are a few things that set the Santa Cruz Mountains apart from other cool climate regions in California,’ says Cole Thomas, winemaker at Madson.

‘The first is that we experience ocean wind much differently. Most of California’s cool-climate regions experience very high prevailing ocean winds, whereas our vineyards do not.

‘We have perpendicular ridge lines and tall redwoods that moderate wind speeds. This makes a massive difference in how the fruit ripens because the vines do not shut down during the warmest and windiest time of the day.

The result is ripe skin tannins earlier.

‘The other key difference is the elevation vs proximity to the ocean. It is rare to have both such a high elevation and ocean exposure together. It seems many places don't have both,’ Thomas concludes.

Fog among the vines

Comparing the Santa Cruz Mountains to another cool-climate appellation where he grows Pinot and Chardonnay, Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley, Rhys Vineyards winemaker Jeff Brinkman notes how that ocean proximity affects peak temperatures in each region.

‘One difference that is quite important is the way both regions accumulate heat during the growing season. On paper, they have a similar average temperature, but that doesn’t tell the whole story,’ Brinkman explains.

‘In the Anderson Valley, mornings are often foggy, but it’s a higher-elevation fog that doesn’t linger in the vineyard.'

He continues: 'The daily high temperature occurs in the early afternoon, and there’s often a late-afternoon ocean breeze that cools things off quickly. It has a larger swing in daytime high-to-low temperatures.'

This diurnal shift means warm-to-hot days and very cool nights as ocean winds and fog move into the valley.

‘The Santa Cruz Mountains are totally different,’ Brinkman continues. ‘The day-to-night swings are much lower because of the proximity to the ocean, the elevation, and the fog is often right in the vines.

Think of it as a very gradual curve with the daytime high spread over a much longer span of the afternoon.’

Classic Cabernet Sauvignon

Marty Mathis is the second-generation winemaker and grower at the winery his mother, Kathryn Kennedy, founded in Saratoga.

Having returned to the region in 1947, Kennedy, who graduated from Stanford at the age of 19, decided to plant a vineyard in the early 1970s, as California's fine wine boom was underway.

Clone 8 Cabernet, planted on its own roots because Kathryn couldn’t afford the grafting, went into the ground in Saratoga in 1973.

The wines made over the years by Kathryn and, now, her son, Marty Mathis, are among the country's most ethereal.

They are beguiling, elegant, and with a long-lived ageability to rival the iconic brands at the top of the mountain from them, Ridge and Mount Eden.

‘This part of the Santa Clara Valley had a wine reputation which in some ways predated Napa Valley,’ says Marty Mathis, of his mother’s decision to plant at home.

‘In 1885, wines from this part of the Santa Clara Valley were often labelled as Medoc. They included Cabernet, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Though the use of Merlot in this part of California seems to have faded away after prohibition,’ Mathis explains.

Geographic outlier

The Kennedy wines are certainly a product of this cool climate appellation, but as they sit at the foot of the mountains, they're an outlier geographically, yet they show a consistent mountain style of the region.

Mathis believes it's about the soil. ‘The soil is fairly rich in the top, 18-24 inches,' he says.

But below that is a low fertility mix of Clay, sand, sandstone, and quartz pebbles. This provides less vigorous vines and a more mountain-style yield.

Mathis continues: ‘We have two bodies of water that can provide cooling breezes during the most intense heat waves.

'Obviously, the powerful Pacific Ocean flows cool air over the mountains, but we also receive cooling breezes from the south San Francisco Bay when the wind blows from the interior.’

Such savoury Syrah

For a region built on Pinot Noir, it is now best known these days for the Cabernet and Cabernet-based wines of Ridge and the neighbouring Mount Eden.

In my tastings, Syrah, which has proven difficult to market, may just be the region’s most compelling wine.

These are wines of staggering complexity, floral refinement that meets a gamey, umami depth with ferrous minerality and undeniably elegant red fruits.

This variety finds a sweet spot in coastal conditions, where sufficient heat and a long growing season allow the necessary phenolic ripeness at lower sugar levels.

The finished alcohols are often listed between 12.8-13.8%. The acidity and tannin, with varying use of whole bunch maceration, craft ageable wines evocative of the Northern Rhône with dazzling freshness and lifted ‘New World’ fruit.

‘I think the intersection of shallow sedimentary soils and cool climate is key for our Syrah,’ says Brinkman of Rhys Vineyards.

‘The cool climate provides the savoury elements we typically have. I'm thinking specifically of the olive, game, and peppery components. The shallow soils, to me, provide the briny element, good acidity, and naturally lower yields needed for good Syrah.’

Madson’s Cole Thomas is in full agreement, saying: ‘Syrah needs a bit more elevation to ripen. The best sites sit above the fog-line and experience warmer daytime temperatures than most of our Pinot Noir and Chardonnay sites.

'Still, these sites are cool, and sugar accumulation can be a challenge. We typically harvest in late October or early November. Again, poor sandstone soil limits yield and intensifies flavour, while the coolness provides delicate aromatics and freshness in the wine.’

Charming Chardonnay

The elegance that balances depth in the Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnays sticks out across producers and styles.

Perhaps no producer is as synonymous with the variety there as Thomas Fogarty, perched high on the northern flanks of the Santa Cruz range.

It produces six or seven bottlings from an array of single vineyards across its deeply forested estate, a Heritage Oak and Fir preserve.

Here, the vines rub shoulders with the intense and endemic mountain chaparral: California bay, eucalyptus, black sage, Monterey pine and a variety of fragrant manzanitas.

The Fogarty single blocks, eight in all, are planted on a mix of sites. The oldest Chardonnay vines are at Damiana, which sits at the very top of the estate, over 2,000 feet above sea level.

This original block was planted in 1978. The first vineyard was carved out among the trees, after clearing low brush and shrub land.

This approach has informed the others, mostly planted from the early to mid 1980s.

Nathan Kandler leads the winemaking at Thomas Fogarty, and uses a similar approach across all the Chardonnays, allowing the single vineyards to really show their diversity.

‘Most of the differences in the wine stem from soil and exposure in the vineyards,’ explains Kandler.

‘The heterogeneous nature of the various sites leads to pretty amazing differences in the variety of Chardonnays we make. The rootstock and the clonal selection are pretty static.

'The soils, however, range from volcanic basalt to sandstone and shale mixes.’

25 wines from Santa Cruz

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Chassagne-Montrachet is most famous as one of the three great white wine villages in the Côte de Beaune known as The Golden Triangle, along with Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault.

Understanding the true value of Chassagne is more complex, however, given the diverse range of delicious wines in both red and white.

Scroll down for 12 delicious Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru wines to seek out

The reds are not as well-known as the whites today, but not so long ago, there was much more red wine produced here than white.

In the 1855 vineyard classification work by Dr Jules Lavalle, the fame of the village rested firmly on its red wine, and when the appellation was created in 1936, just 25% of the wine produced was white.

By 1982, that proportion had risen to 48%. Today, it is 74% overall and 84% for wines classified as premier cru.

What you need to know

Chassagne, like Chablis, makes use of porte-drapeau (standard bearer) appellations – a premier cru can be labelled with the name of its lieu-dit or can be grouped with one of the eight umbrella appellations, which include several different lieux-dits. Some have further subdivisions, producing a confusing welter of 55 potential premiers crus in total.

My 10 favourite premiers crus

Blanchot Dessus

Blanchot Dessus is one of four small premiers crus that surround the grands crus, producing wines that can be rich and buttery, with some of the density of their grand cru neighbours; all lie north of the Route Nationale, near Puligny.

Blanchot Dessus is located to the south of its illustrious neighbour Montrachet, up the slope from Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet. This well-located premier cru should not be confused with the village-level Blanchot Dessous, which lies just downslope in heavier soils and also borders grand cru Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet.

Dent de Chien

Dent de Chien (meaning ‘dog’s tooth’ in French) is a patchy appellation – much of it is scrub land with soils too thin to plant. What is planted, however, can be superb (part of it touches Montrachet).

Nearly a half-hectare of Dent de Chien was reclassified as Montrachet in a 1921 court case, and the wines are undeniably lush and dense. Don’t confuse this appellation with the St Aubin premier cru Les Murgers des Dents de Chien (‘stone walls made of dog’s teeth’), which is above the unplanted part of Montrachet.

Dent de Chien is further up the slope than Blanchot Dessus, and the wine is a bit edgier, with more tension but less richness.

Les Chaumées

At the northern edge of the village, the premiers crus face east and north; they have more in common with St Aubin than with the rest of Chassagne. At the top of the slope lies Les Chaumées (not to be confused with Les Chaumes, which is at the other end of the village in the Boudriottes subdivision of Morgeot).

These are wines that can be lemony, mineral and bright with elegance and finesse. Of particular note is a clos called Clos de la Truffière, planted with very old vines.

It is farmed by Domaine Michel Niellon and Domaine Jouard; Domaine Jean-Noël Gagnard has also resumed farming a small parcel here that will go to the new domaine of Philippe Lestimé, son of owner Caroline Lestimé.

Les Chenevottes

The vineyards below Les Chaumées are given over to the lieux-dits Les Chenevottes and its umbrella, mostly sold as Chenevottes, and the stand-alone Les Macherelles. This section of Chassagne is less steep than Les Chaumées, and the wines are typically softer, more floral, and often lighter.

As with Les Chaumées, the vineyard is planted exclusively with Chardonnay. At more than 10ha, it is a large vineyard producing a range of styles and qualities.

I was seduced recently by a Chenevottes from Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey with a few years of bottle age that was sublime.

Clos Saint-Jean

Clos Saint-Jean owes its name to its original owner, the abbey of Saint-Jean-le-Grand in Autun founded in the 6th century. The vines of the clos are located just above the village of Chassagne itself. They are planted with a mix of red and white varieties.

The red wines can be very elegant and balanced. They are often not as powerful or full-bodied as those from Maltroie, which is down the slope from the village and do not display the rustic tannins that Chassagne is sometimes accused of producing. The whites here can strike a deft balance between richness, finesse and tension.

Champs Gains

The climat Les Champs Gain (as it appears in the cadastre, or land registry; many variant spellings exist) is located at the base of the premier cru slope just south of Maltroie and the village of Chassagne proper.

It is mostly planted to Chardonnay today, although Caroline Morey produces a delicious version in red, as do several other members of her extended family.

Given the clay-rich soils at the base of the slope, it is a logical choice, but the whites are also very fine. A version from Armand Heitz is rich and Meursault-like, while the one produced by Marc-Antonin Blain (from vines that are at the foot of the Caillerets premier cru just bordering Champs Gains up the slope) drinks more like a Puligny.

La Romanée

La Romanée is among the most spectacular vineyards at the top of the slope. It is a part of the umbrella climat of La Grande Montagne. Here, the thin limestone soils and high elevation combine to make a perfect place to produce electric, lemony white wines.

At 3.35ha, La Romanée is the largest lieu-dit in La Grande Montagne; several producers use this latter name, although many prefer La Romanée. Both are worth exploring, along with the other lieux-dits here, including Grandes Ruchottes, En Virondot, and two small patches that can be called Tonton Marcel.

These lively, vivacious wines are almost pungent with citrus aromas, even in hot years, and can potentially live for decades.

En Cailleret

En Cailleret is a lieu-dit and a climat of its own, distinct from neighbouring Cailleret (without the ‘En’), which is an umbrella composed of Vigne Derrière, Les Combards and Chassagne.

You will often find the appellation spelt in the plural as Les Caillerets. Located at the southern end of the village, this is an exceptional sector for white wine, with the vines stretching to the top of the slope in thin, rocky soils rich with white marl.

The wines, like those of nearby La Grande Montagne, are tense, linear and packed with exciting freshness.

La Boudriotte

Lieu-dit La Boudriotte itself is fairly small – 2.2ha. There are, however, many vineyards that can be labelled as La Boudriotte: six lieux-dits totalling 15.6ha.

Boudriotte itself lies at the centre, with the other lieux-dits stretching up and down the slope, running from thin, rocky Grande Montagne down to the richer, heavier soils of the village-level band at its base.

This diversity means there are both superb whites and reds to be found here, though sorting them out can be daunting. One example is Domaine Ramonet, which produces a delicious, finely chiselled white labelled La Boudriotte from vines in lieu-dit Les Fairendes, and an equally delicious but hearty, tannic red from lieu-dit Boudriotte itself, which the domaine labels as Clos de la Boudriotte.

Les Brussonnes

Located at the base of the slope at the southern end of the village, Brussonnes (like La Boudriotte) forms part of the larger Morgeot and is itself composed of seven lieux-dits. Red and white wines are both produced here with remarkable success.

Some feel the fairly dense clay soils are better suited to growing Pinot Noir. The enchanting white produced by Céline Fontaine at Domaine Fontaine-Gagnard, however, gives the lie to those who would exclude Chardonnay here, although note that she labels her version simply as Morgeot blanc.

The impressive range of white wines from Chassagne accounts for the village’s renown in today’s market, but the red wines, particularly from Clos Saint-Jean, La Maltroie and greater Morgeot, are among the region’s finest.

Although they fly under the radar, they keenly merit your attention.

Chassagne-Montrachet: 12 top premier cru wines

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The 2023 wines from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti have just been released onto the market.

The domaine’s co-directors Perrine Fenal and Bertrand de Villaine were present in London last week to reveal them to the trade and press, alongside UK agent Corney & Barrow’s managing director Adam Brett-Smith.

Tasting notes and scores for DRC’s 2023 from Burgundy correspondent Charles Curtis MW available next month

Like its predecessor, it is no secret that 2023 is considered a ‘solar’ vintage in Burgundy. For the second year in a row, the domaine saw a particularly large crop of grapes with high levels of ripeness hurtle into the winery.

Yet this is perhaps where the similarities between 2023 and 2022 end.

‘As always with Burgundy,’ reinforces Fenal, ‘it is essential to look closely at the details and to avoid hasty conclusions.’

Because the wines themselves are extraordinarily different.

Discarding the most expensive fruit in the world – Why green harvesting was essential this vintage

Spring frosts were narrowly avoided at the domaine, and disease pressure built up following a cool and wet period. Yet flowering was successful, after the rain let up.

Humidity and moderate temperatures in July and August meant ‘the berries continued to increase in size without making significant progress in ripening,’ says Fenal, and botrytis developed in some areas.

Spurred on by the humidity, a high crop load and large berries, the viticultural team, led by new vineyard manager Sylvain Pellegrinelli who started in March 2023, decided to green harvest, removing large, compact, unripe bunches and those affected by disease.

Vines were still showing incomplete veraison before two heat waves struck, causing sugar levels to rise rapidly.

‘The heat was intense and in the afternoon became almost unbearable,’ says Fenal, ‘The grapes were heavy and became hot, just like us.’

There was another rigorous selection of bunches at harvest, as those exposed to the sun or beginning to rot were discarded.

‘Only the clusters best able to retain freshness and acidity were kept,’ says Fenal.

What does this mean for the wines?

High levels of natural maturity in the grapes – ‘much higher than we ever had,’ says de Villaine – means that, for the first time, all of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wines come in over 14% ABV.

Yet the wines are far from overripe. Instead, they are extraordinarily balanced and fine tuned. There’s a concentration of fruit, but also a concentration of minerals, bringing things into balance.

De Villaine stresses that there were no drastic differences or changes to winemaking, just adapting their logistics to cope with a large volume of must coming into the winery at the same time.

‘There’s no big revolution,’ says De Villaine, ‘we tried, a little bit, some other ways of vinification – stainless steel for some quantities, to see how it worked.’

But otherwise, it’s just about paying attention.

What is striking about the 2023s is their structure: mighty, statuesque, with quite imposing architecture. This implies that, with their gorgeous fruit and mineral tension, these wines will go the distance.

Prices and stock

‘2023 and 2022 were the two most important vintages [in terms of quantity] we have ever received in the winery at the domaine,’ says de Villaine.

This is reflected in the total production of bottles for each wine. In fact, there’s even more Romanée-St-Vivant, Richebourg, La Tâche and Montrachet than the bumper 2022, but there’s a little less Corton, Echézeaux, Grand Echézeaux, Romanée-Conti and Corton-Charlemagne.

Prices are approximately 6% more than the 2022s were on release.

If you can get an allocation, one bottle of Echézeaux will set you back £570 (in bond); La Tâche £1560 (in bond); and Romanée-Conti £4,485 (in bond).

The wines are sold on allocation in the UK by Corney & Barrow.

Look out for Charles Curtis MW’s tasting notes and scores of the DRC 2023 wines next month.

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Growers in Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet benefited from the slightly drier conditions and better flowering in the Côte de Beaune in 2024.

The result is an exceptional balance of finesse, structure and fruit that makes the wines irresistible.

Scroll down for Charles Curtis MW’s 20 top-scoring Chassagne & Puligny-Montrachet 2024 wines

‘The wines in 2024 are more electric than the 2023s,’ says Pierre-Yves Colin, of his eponymous domaine, ‘they are clear and precise and remind me of 2017 and 2014. The great 2024s will age very well.’

‘The wine feels more confident before bottling, and we need much less sulphur than we did before,’ he says.

At Domaine Michel Niellon, winemaker Lucie Coutoux says: ‘The wines have finesse and freshness; they are subtle, discreet and harmonious. They averaged 11%-11.5% potential alcohol at harvest and chaptalised up to 12%-12.45% with a classic pH of 3.1-3.2; but the two grands crus both ripened to more than 12%’.

In Puligny, conditions were similar. At Domaine Jean Chartron, although they lost 15%-20% of their crop, they felt lucky because they caught the mildew problem early and treated it as the second leaf emerged on the new shoots.

Alvina Pernot, of her eponymous domaine, was very pleased with the outcome: ‘This vintage suits our style perfectly. People can go anywhere in the world for Chardonnay at 14%-14.5%, but they come to Burgundy because of this balance.’

Discerning enthusiasts can happily buy many high-scoring wines from these villages in 2024, defined by remarkable balance and fine structures.

Top picks from Chassagne & Puligny:

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Think of Bordeaux and an exclusive selection premium wines is likely to spring to mind – first growths, en primeur offerings and world-famous châteaux don’t tend to scream ‘value’.

Likewise in Burgundy, you’re unlikely to treat the grands crus of Romanée-Conti, Corton and Montrachet as casual purchases for mid-week quaffing.

But as with most wine regions, you can still find value-for-money bottles and enjoy something truly special without breaking the bank.

To back up this claim, we’ve pulled together a number of wines from across Burgundy and Bordeaux, all on the shelf at under £30 per bottle* – and some below £20.

There’s something for everyone here; sparkling, white, red and sweet, and several offerings from well-known areas including St-Julien, St-Estèphe, Beaujolais, Chablis and Sauternes.

Alongside individual producers, our selection also showcases some great-value supermarket own-brand labels.

*The Sauternes listed is available in half bottle format

Best value Burgundy and Bordeaux: 14 top picks

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Alex Hunt MW, Roger Jones and Beth Pearce MW tasted 80 wines, with 6 Outstanding and 26 Highly Recommended

Cool-climate Australian Chardonnay: Panel tasting scores

80 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 6

Highly recommended 26

Recommended 39

Commended 9

Fair 0

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their current-release, 100% Chardonnay still wines produced in any of Australia’s cool-climate regions

Scroll down to see the top-scoring wines from our cool-climate Australian Chardonnay panel tasting

Regionality on show

It has been said that Chardonnay represents one of the clearest and most precise lenses through which we can view terroir, and this impressive tasting offered ample evidence to support that assertion.

The affinity between Australia and Chardonnay is well established, of course, so expectations were high before this tasting.

On the other hand, however, there have been times when this particular lens has proved to be ill-focused, with regional differences blurred either by too-obvious winemaking or by the terroir-masking fallacy of early picking.

Not so on this occasion, with all three of the judges discovering commendably distinct regional expressions.

Beth Pearce MW commented that ‘more than ever, the wines seem to be showing a sense of place rather than simply reflecting the winemakers’ preferences for reduction and/or ripeness’.

This would be academic were the wines not delicious, but happily there was much to enjoy here on a hedonistic level, too.

Roger Jones noted: ‘It was good to see high marks from across the regions,’ and the fact that 40% of entries scored 90 points or above demonstrates that our high expectations were borne out.

A rich and diverse palette

The most reliably excellent region was Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, with wines that combined beguiling texture with a zesty energy and an ability to age.

Jones observed that wines from here ‘need a bit longer to evolve, but when they do, they certainly develop well, balancing perfume, gunflint as well as delicate ripe stone fruit’.

Meanwhile, Margaret River in Western Australia showcased its trademark blend of density, complexity and freshness, which Pearce found ‘very impressive, effortless in its power and quality, particularly in the 2023 vintage’.

At their best, Tasmania’s steely tension and the Burgundy-esque poise of the Yarra Valley in Victoria drew admiration from the panel, while the standout surprise was Geelong, another Victorian sub-region.

Pearce praised its ‘confident balance’, and the entries from here showed that regardless of whether the wines are from a young or more mature vintage,

Geelong offers a characteristic energy, grip and aromatic profile that combine to make these some of the country’s most thrilling expressions of the Chardonnay grape.

What to eat with cool-climate Australian Chardonnay, by Fiona Beckett

Chardonnay is such a blissful pairing for so many dishes that the only question is, how far do you push the boat out with the food?

With the lovely acidity of these cool-climate wines, seafood would be my first port of call, especially for younger vintages – I’m particularly thinking in terms of grilled lobster, langoustines and seared scallops, or a luxurious fish pie.

Chicken, of course, is another reliable go-to. A simply roasted bird with delicious, umami-rich, crisp skin would be heaven for older vintages, as would fried chicken (perhaps American-style rather than Korean), with a cream gravy – in fact, virtually anything creamy is spot-on with Chardonnay, especially when topped with pastry, as in a chicken pot pie. That might sound too homely, but simple is what to aim for with wines of this quality.

There are also, of course, vegetables that are particularly Chardonnay-friendly, such as corn, butternut squash (especially with sage) and braised fennel; and mushrooms, too (especially in a risotto). In short, tomato- and red wine-based sauces aside, it’s pretty hard to go wrong.

See all notes and scores from the cool-climate Australian Chardonnay tasting

The judges

Alex Hunt MW is purchasing director at London-based merchant Berkmann Wine Cellars. He became a Master of Wine in 2010, and was awarded the Bollinger Tasting Medal that year. A seasoned wine judge, his writing has appeared in a number of prominent titles, including Decanter

Roger Jones is the retired former owner of The Harrow at Little Bedwyn restaurant in Wiltshire. He is now a wine writer, judge (including for DWWA) and consultant with a particular interest in the hospitality trade, as well as helping charities

Beth Pearce MW is the recently appointed head of buying at Flint Wines. Her extensive experience in the wine industry includes roles in retail and buying at Majestic and most recently buying director at Lay & Wheeler

Cool-climate Australian Chardonnay panel tasting results:

Wines were tasted blind

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Of all the many thousands of wines tasted by Decanter every year, only a small handful ever gain the very highest score of 100.

This year, in fact, a mere 30 wines (tasted between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025) gained that coveted triple-digit score. In the immortal words of Cilla Black, let’s look at what they are and where they come from.

Top-scorers by country

As two countries that feature heavily both online and in print, the bulk of this year’s top-scoring wines came from France and the US.

France had the higher number of 100-point scores by far – 15 wines (50%) versus 12 (40%) from the US – while Italy with two 100-point wines and Australia with just one made up the difference.

Top-scorers by region

Drilling down into the regions things get a little more interesting. We can see that the French wines are split among several regions, with Bordeaux taking the largest share of 100-point wines (nine wines overall or 30% of the total).

However, the largest single region for top scores was California, with 11 wines (36.7%) that received a 100-point score.

The Rhône Valley was the third most-awarded region with five (16.7%) of the top scores, while Western Australia, Burgundy, Oregon, Tuscany and Piedmont all picked up one perfect score apiece.

Top-scorers by appellation

The most-awarded appellation overall was the Napa Valley, which had 10 wines with a 100-point score (mostly from one standout vintage, which was also the case with many of the Bordeaux wines as we’ll explore below).

There were three wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape as the second highly rated appellation – though probably not wines you would expect – followed by Cornas, Pauillac, Pessac-Léognan, Pomerol and St-Emilion which all had two 100-point scores this past year.

The remaining appellations were Barolo, La Tâche, Margaret River, Margaux, Sonoma County, Toscana, and Willamette Valley with one 100-point wine apiece.

And now let’s briefly look at those wines.

France

Bordeaux

Many of the vintage reports published this year have focused on the very difficult 2024 vintage, which has not yielded many exceptional wines overall.

However, Bordeaux editor Georgie Hindle also reviewed the recently bottled and shipped 2022 vintage from Bordeaux which was a different story altogether.

In her report published in March, she said of the vintage: ‘The 2022s have emerged as wines out to please. As a group they are highly charged and powerful with an impressive amount of fruit, tannins and alcohol, yet they are refined and balanced with a sense of classicism.’

She gave six wines a score of 100-points – three each from the left and right banks.

She also gave a perfect score to the ‘monumental’ 2016 vintage of Château Latour, finally released from the estate’s cellars this spring.

Two wines from the 2015 vintage, Château Margaux and Château Lafleur confirmed in their majesty 10 years on.

Rhône Valley

Matt Walls covers the Rhône extensively for Decanter and this February he wrote about an especially memorable tasting at Château de Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which yielded three 100-point wines.

These were not the estate’s reds though – but rather its ‘masterpiece’ of a white wine, the Roussanne Vieilles Vignes.

Tasted while scenes from Netflix’s Drops of God adaptation were filmed in the background, Walls was thoroughly seduced by what he calls ‘one of France’s greatest Mediterranean whites’, with many high scores given including three digits for three vintages: 2020, 2014 and 1988.

There was room for a couple of top-scoring reds though, notably two 2010 Cornas from Domaine Clape and Vincent Paris, which are among Walls’s favourite vintages from that appellation to drink now.

Burgundy

For a region with such a sterling reputation, there was just one wine that claimed a ‘perfect’ score in 2025. Maybe the standards of expectation from the Côte d’Or are that much higher?

Nonetheless, the unsurprising top-scorer was from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, with the domaine’s La Tâche 2022 getting the seal of approval from Charles Curtis MW during his in-bottle tasting this spring.

US

Napa Valley

Like Bordeaux, the bulk of top scores for Napa Valley this year came from the 2022 vintage, which was also not necessarily a straightforward growing season but from which some true gems have emerged.

Jonathan Cristaldi wrote in his report: ‘Compared to more structured, long-ageing vintages such as 2021 or 2019, the 2022s are approachable, plush and opulent.

‘Tannin structure varies, with some wines showcasing excellent granular grip and ageing potential while others exhibit a smoother, more fruit-driven profile that leans toward early drinking.’

Cristaldi ultimately gave six wines from the 2022 vintage 100 points, alongside another four from the 2021 – giving Napa its rather awesome tally of 10 top-scores this year.

Sonoma and Willamette Valley

The only US wines breaking Napa’s stranglehold on the crown were a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay duo.

In her report on the wines from the Sonoma Coast in 2022 (there’s that vintage again), Ana Carolina Quintela gave 100-points to the Cuvée Elizabeth Pinot Noir from Occidental. A true ‘wow-moment wine’ she noted.

And our North America editor, Clive Pursehouse, awarded his very first 100-point wine to the ‘captivating’ Bethel Heights’ The High Wire Chardonnay 2023 from Willamette Valley in Oregon.

Best of the rest

Italy

A rather diplomatic split of one 100-point score each for Italy’s premier regions of Piedmont and Tuscany this year.

Michaela Morris dished out a top-score to Giacomo Conterno’s Montfortino Riserva 2019 in her review of that newly-released batch of wines.

And Italy editor, James Button, couldn’t help but give 100-points to the ‘impeccably harmonious and long-lived’ 2006 Masseto during a vertical of the Super Tuscan at the start of the year.

Australia

And to wrap things up, while reviewing the wines being released through La Place de Bordeaux this autumn, Hindle gave top marks to the Cloudburst Chardonnay from Margaret River.

She wrote: ‘Round, utterly moreish from the first sip – this is engaging, mouthwatering, alive and so utterly enjoyable. I’d never tire of drinking this wine.’

Decanter’s 100-point wines of 2025:

Related content

Bordeaux 2022: The 100-point wines

Napa Cabernet Sauvignon 2022: Vintage report and buyer’s guide

‘This is my first 100-point wine after nearly 4,000 in my three years at Decanter’

White Burgundy is a consistently alluring wine category, but with prices ever on the rise, finding budget Burgundy can be a tricky task.

In searching for white Burgundy under £25, I was pleased to discover that great value still exists without any compromise in quality.

Scroll down for three white Burgundies under £25

Northern Burgundy

Chablis, the northernmost region of Burgundy, has long been fertile ground for good value white wine.

When even the price of Petit Chablis is stretching the budget, however, it may be time to look further afield.

The second grape of Burgundy is Aligoté, which can provide refreshing, vibrant wines.

The Goisot family, from St-Bris, just west of Chablis, is one of the most accomplished producers of the grape.

Its venerable vines (some a century old), in the Kimmeridgian clay soils studded with oyster shells, consistently produce a riveting version of Aligoté.

Aromas run from grapefruit to tarragon, and the wine is superb paired with seafood or simply on its own

Jean Hugues & Guilhem Goisot, Bourgogne Aligoté 2023

Goisot’s textbook Aligoté boasts pungent aromas of grapefruit, gooseberry and lime peel, with hints of chalky minerals and tarragon. The texture is lively and fresh, and the tangy, salty flavours linger on the finish. The grapes come from 4.5ha of ancient vines (up to 100 years old) in St-Bris, planted in Kimmeridgian soil with red clay and oyster shells; they are gently pressed and fermented entirely in tank. This will drink on release but would gain interest with a few years in the cellar. 93 points

Bourgogne

The Côte d’Or is the heart of Burgundy and is home to its most well-known villages.

Unfortunately, for those on a budget, it also produces its most expensive wines. To succeed in the under £25 category here, we will look for a regional-level Bourgogne.

Regional Bourgogne can be a minefield, and to discover the hidden gems, one needs to know the producers and their wines.

Puligny-Montrachet-based Olivier Leflaive is justly renowned as a master of his craft.

His Bourgogne Les Setilles is named after his garden, and the heart of the cuvée comes from the areas around Puligny and Meursault, blended with grapes from the Côte Chalonnaise and the Hautes-Côtes.

Olivier Leflaive, Les Sétilles, Bourgogne 2023

There’s an appealing Granny Smith apple and nectarine fruit aroma with a hint of white blossom on the initial attack. The texture is surprisingly fresh for the vintage, and the finish is elegantly lovely – astonishing quality given the volume of production. 90 points

Mâcon

No survey of bargain white Burgundy would be complete without a look at the Mâconnais. The most well-known corner of the southernmost Burgundy sub-region is Pouilly-Fuissé, but to unearth top wines at value prices, it helps to look further afield.

Jean-Marie Guffens is one of the legends of the Mâconnais and proprietor of the négociant firm Maison Verget as well as his eponymous domaine.

Verget’s able winemaker, Julien Desplantes, consistently turns out some of the area’s finest wines, comparable to top wines anywhere in Burgundy.

Mâcon-Pierreclos, near their headquarters in Sologny, is one of their specialities, and the entry-level version here, fermented in stainless steel tanks, is a marvel.

Maison Verget, Mâconnais, Mâcon-Pierreclos 2023

The entry-level Mâcon-Pierreclos is a superb example of what the Mâconnais can offer – ripe aromas of apricot and Williams pear touched with a flinty mineral note and a suggestion of Parmesan from the lees ageing. The texture is layered and fine, but not heavy, although the finish lingers pleasantly on the palate. The grapes are from three east-facing parcels of old vines opposite the slope used for the top-level Chavigné cuvée. This latter wine begs for ageing, but this tank-fermented introduction to Pierreclos is perfect for early drinking. 93 points

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The ABC movement – Anything But Chardonnay – is, thankfully, old news.

As consumers have recognised Chardonnay’s versatility and finesse, we’ve come full circle, and shunning it has become as unfashionable, predictable and eye-roll worthy as the wine was previously esteemed.

From crisp and refreshing to buttery and rounded (yes, that’s completely fine too), we’ve picked out a selection of Chardonnays available in the UK, priced at £25 and under per bottle (with one exception).

Our choices span Old World classics in the form of Chablis and other Burgundy, New World offerings from South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and even an exciting discovery from Poland.

With an array of styles, you could even use our list of great-value Chardonnay as inspiration for your festive celebrations.

Leckford Estate’s Blanc de Blancs – our outlier in the £25-and-under price cap, although still great value at £35 a bottle – would make an ideal party aperitif to serve with canapés. Another crowd-pleasing sparkling option comes in the form of Aldi’s Specially Selected Crémant du Jura – a steal at just £10.99.

Those in the market for a refreshing bottle to pair with a seafood starter are well catered for here, with great Chablis options including Chassaux et Fils’ Specially Selected 1er Cru 2023, or Laurent Delaunay’s Les Grappillages 2023.

Looking for something with a bit more punch? How about Domaine Masse’s Pierre Ponnelle Montagny 1er Cru 2023 to go with turkey, or Asda’s Exceptional White Burgundy 2023 with roast pork.

And for something opulent and full-bodied, opt for Pegasus Bay’s Waipara Valley 2020 offering.

If you’re after something new to impress, try Kamil Barczentewicz’s Chardonnay Béton 2023 – a lovely rounded style from South East Poland which would also make a great gift for that wine lover friend who’s tried it all.

Great-value Chardonnay for Christmas: 15 bottles to try

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Despite widespread reports of its challenges, the results of the 2024 vintage hold surprises both good and less good for Burgundy lovers.

The weather during the 2024 growing season defied current global warming trends. Most of the past six years have been unrelentingly hot and dry, with only 2021 offering some respite.

The tables turned in 2024, when nature surprised us with unprecedented amounts of rain and some of the lowest levels of sunshine in recent memory.

As a consequence, the wines harken back to earlier Burgundy, with a return to its roots and an emphasis on finesse and elegance at the expense of power.

Tough conditions

Because of the heat of February and August, the average temperature for the year was not particularly cold, but during the critical months of May, June and July temperatures struggled to reach the norm.

Total rainfall was the third-highest of the century (after 2013 and 2001), and there were fewer hours of sunshine than in any other year in the 21st century.

Disruption of flowering from cold and near-constant rain favoured mildew and made ripening difficult. Warmth and sunshine in August lessened some of the damage, however, and picking began in mid-September and continued in some cases into October.

The impact of these conditions on the wines was dramatic. In general, the wines are light in body, low in alcohol, and moderate to high in acidity, with red wines that are notably light in colour, with tannins that can be astringent.

These generalities, however, mask great regional diversity.

Chablis – hard hit

The area most gravely affected by the 2024 weather was Chablis, with three hailstorms, incessant rain, and more pressure from mildew than most growers have ever seen.

Estimates of crop losses vary from 60% to 90%, and some organic producers did not harvest any grapes at all in 2024. Those who did were required to sort very stringently.

Top growers, however, managed through Herculean effort to produce lovely wines.

Vincent Dauvissat says: ‘Except for the low degree [of potential alcohol], the balance is surprisingly similar to 2014.’

High praise indeed, since wines from 2014 are showing extremely well today.

The golden slope – one step from disaster

The Côte de Nuits was also gravely impacted by the weather. In an odd turnabout, the damage was more severe here than in the Côte de Beaune.

According to Yves Confuron, who makes wines in both regions, there was twice as much rain in the Côte de Nuits as in the Côte de Beaune. The constant rain made work in the vineyards difficult, and the mood among winemakers was morose.

But as Frédéric Mugnier notes: ‘You can never trust a winemaker, since [their comments] reflect their lived experience,’ as opposed to an objective evaluation of quality. Results here are mixed, but some have shone, particularly his.

Further south in the Côte de Beaune, results also varied. The hill of Corton suffered as much as the growers of the Côte de Nuits – organic-certified Domaine Chandon de Briailles blended all of its Corton lieux-dits into one wine, for example.

However, from Beaune south to Maranges, the outlook was more favourable. Yield was still low here, but less catastrophic than in the Côte de Nuits.

At Domaine Comte Armand in Pommard, general manager and winemaker Paul Zinetti says that yields were generally between 15-24 hl/ha, depending on the appellation.

Results were even more positive for Chardonnay producers. The vine flowers earlier and was thus less affected by poor weather at this point.

The skin of Chardonnay is also thicker, and therefore more resistant to mildew. Many growers here agree with the comparison between 2014 and 2024, which is positive news for growers.

Although yields are disappointingly low, the quality of the grapes can be superb, with a lemony fruit, impressive concentration and abundant fresh acidity.

The southern appellations – surprise results

Throughout my tastings of the 2024 vintage, the wines continued to improve the further south I ventured.

The red wines of the Côte Chalonnaise were among the most successful in the region, with marvellous examples from Givry and Mercurey.

The Côte Chalonnaise is a region known for value, and Burgundy lovers who taste these wines with an open mind are in for a delightful surprise. The best of them have abundant, ripe fruit balanced by firm tannic grip and a fresh, lively acidity, making them attractive for current drinking or mid-term cellaring.

Further delights await in the Mâconnais, almost exclusively devoted to Chardonnay. Here, the vintage must be considered very good to excellent.

There was less pressure from disease (particularly in the southern reaches around Pouilly-Fuissé), and the wines show ripe fruit but enough vibrant lemony notes to keep them lively on the palate. The best of these are wines that will age for a decade or more.

Throughout Burgundy, the quantity of wine available will be limited. To find excitement, Burgundy lovers will need to be very careful with their choices for regional appellations and entry-level wines, particularly in Chablis and the Côte de Nuits.

However, top producers will make wines worthy of interest. There will be some surprising value in the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais for those who seek them out, and the best of the whites should have a long life in the cellar.

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The difficult 2024 vintage in Chablis was ‘historically problematic,’ according to winemaker Laurent Pinson.

The press release of the BIVB, the region’s normally up-beat trade commission, admits: ‘Floods, excess rains, frost, hail…nothing saved the vines’.

And yet, there are glimmers of hope. The appeal is the return to the fresh, racy acidity, light body and low alcohol of previous decades.

Romain Chevrolat, winemaker at Domaine Laroche, describes the vintage as ‘old school’.

Guillaume Michaut at Domaine 47°N 3°E agrees: ‘This is a vintage our grandfathers could have made’.

Although overall quality is decidedly mixed, with little consistency between grand and premier cru to village level, lovers of vibrant, acid- and mineral-driven wines will find wines to age, since the best 2024 Chablis will improve for years to come with cellaring.

Charles’s favourite wines from Chablis 2024 listed below

Chablis 2024 vintage rating: 3.5/5

A catastrophically small harvest with problems at every turn, 2024 nonetheless produced some vibrant, ageworthy examples in the hands of the best producers. Cool, rainy conditions produced wines that are light in alcohol and body. Yet, the best wines, sustained by dynamic acidity and classic Chablis minerality, will delight fans of the Chablis of former times.

Wine of the vintage: Domaine Vincent Dauvissat, Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses

Top Petit Chablis: Domaine 47°N 3°E, Petit Chablis

Top Chablis: Domaine Jean-Paul & Benoît Droin, Chablis

Top Chablis 1er Cru: Domaine William Fèvre, Chablis 1er Cru Vaulorent

Top Chablis Grand Cru: Domaine François Raveneau, Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos

Disaster strikes early

The catastrophically poor weather of 2024 began the winter before the growing season.

According to the cooperative La Chablisienne, the five months before budbreak from 15 October 2023 saw 50% more rain than usual (531mm versus the average 335mm).

Warm temperatures in March led to early budbreak, exposing the vines to damage from the frost that arrived between 18-25 April.

The vines sustained more significant damage, however, in the massive hailstorm that ravaged the region on 1 May, destroying or severely damaging more than one-third of Chablis’ vineyards.

Heavy rain continued through May and June, accompanied by an abrupt drop in temperature that interrupted flowering.

This interruption drew the process out to more than three weeks, causing coulure and devastating the yield.

The difficult flowering was capped by a second significant hailstorm on 29 June.

The mildew continued its invasion throughout July as the rain continued, and the month finished with another hailstorm on 31 July.

The weather was warm and dry in the first half of August, but rain reappeared in the second half of the month and periodically during the harvest.

A harvest you never want to see

Although some growers picked earlier to capitalise on the beneficent warmth of August, most waited until the middle of the third week of September.

Ripening was so uneven that the larger producers took two to three weeks to finish the task.

In the end, alcohol levels were low and acidity levels were moderate to high.

Yields varied by producer, but most reported losses of between 60% and 90% of a normal crop.

It is likely the case that, where more generous yields were reported, winemakers benefited from legally blending up to 15% of wine from the abundant 2023 vintage, as allowed under the VCI system (Volume Complémentaire Individuel).

Ten best-value wines of 2024

Domaine Jean-Paul & Benoît Droin, Chablis

Domaine Bessin-Tremblay, Chablis Vieilles Vignes

Domaine Besson, Chablis

Domaine Christian Moreau, Chablis

Domaine de l’Enclos, Chablis

Domaine William Fèvre, Chablis Domaine

Famille Gueguen, Petit Chablis

La Chablisienne, Chablis 1er cru La Grande Cuvée

Domaine 47°N 3°E, Petit Chablis

Domaine Laurent Tribut, Chablis

A diversity of problems

Although the effects of the weather were severe for everyone, various sectors were afflicted by different problems.

The hail devastated primarily the northern part of Chablis, particularly the premier cru Fourchaume on the right bank of the Serein and the area surrounding the village of La Chapelle-Vaupelteigne.

In contrast, the grand cru slopes immediately south of La Chapelle were less affected by hail but suffered more from mildew.

The same is true for the villages across the Serein on the left bank: less hail damage in the premier cru climats of Vaillons and Montmains, but more losses from mildew.

Isabelle Raveneau, of Domaine François Raveneau, describes the varied nature of the destruction: ‘We began to pick on 23 September and finished in a bit over five days. In some parcels, we were able to harvest less than 10hl/ha, and in Montmains, we did not harvest at all.

‘In Vaillons, the harvest was very small, but in Montée de Tonnerre, we managed 50% of a normal crop, and approximately one-third in Petit Chablis. The few grapes that were left were in a correct state of health, because the warm weather dried them before the harvest.

She concludes: ‘The impact on us was more due to the frost and hail than to the mildew. The sectors that were least affected included Les Forets and Montée de Tonnerre.’

Even within the contiguous seven climats on the grand cru slope, there was significant variation.

Vincent Dauvissat did not harvest any grapes in his Les Clos vineyard, but his vines in Les Preuses, less affected by mildew, yielded one of the delights of the vintage.

Didier Séguier from Domaine William Fèvre, which also has vines in Les Clos, says: ‘Normally we employ 160 pickers for 9-10 days of picking. In 2024, we hired 210 pickers for 3.5 days. We were only able to harvest 4hl/ha in Les Clos.’

However, he adapted his methods to the vintage and ultimately he notes: ‘In terms of quality, I am more or less in the camp of the optimists for this vintage.’

Producers to know

Domaine Eleni et Edouard Vocoret

Château de Béru

Domaine de l’Enclos

Domaine Laurent Tribut

Domaine 47°N 3°E

Domaine Alain et Cyril Gautheron

Domaine Bessin-Tremblay

Domaine Les Pétioles

Domaine Goisot (Saint Bris)

Domaine Colinot (Irancy)

Five tips before you buy 2024 Chablis

Chablis 2024 is a vintage that is worth buying for fans of the traditional style of taut, mineral-inflected Chablis.

Interested collectors should act quickly since quantities will be limited, but the top wines will age for years to come.

If money is no object, seek out Les Clos from Raveneau or Les Preuses from Dauvissat, both among the best wines of the vintage.

The 2024s will have more structure and punch than the wines from 2023. They are less substantial than those from 2022 but there is more minerality, and the wines will be more complete and well-rounded than those from 2021.

With a bit of luck, this is an opportunity to restock the delicious twin of the 2014 vintage which is just coming into maturity now.

Click here to see all notes on Chablis 2024

Chablis: Know your vintages

2023: A large harvest with a hot, sunny conclusion. The growing season was up and down, with abundant rain and cool temperatures, but the success of the year was decided by the hot, dry conditions that in the end delivered healthy grapes with moderate alcohol but slightly lower acidity. 4/5

2022: In retrospect, the warm, sunny conditions of 2022 edge out those of 2023. This is odd because August was too hot, causing the vines to shut down and preserve more acidity than 2023. This slightly superior freshness means the wines of 2022 will have a seductive balance and might well age better. 4.5/5

2021: The low yields and the difficult growing conditions were a constant challenge for growers. In the end, however, the lower yields and resulting concentration meant the top wines were thrillingly crisp, concentrated and powerful and will undoubtedly enjoy a long life in the cellar. 4/5

2020: A warm, easy year, the antithesis of the year that followed: the vines had everything – heat, sunshine, enough rain. The result is an approachable vintage with easy, moreish fruit aromas that will drink well young but may drop off sooner than the wines from 2019. 4/5

2019: Several heatwaves during this sunny year meant many initially felt that the wines lacked freshness. But time has shown that the wines’ intensity means they should hold well and have the structure to support their weight. 4.5/5

2018: A large harvest in a hot year produced wines with lots of body and warmth, but sometimes without the structure for long ageing. A very rewarding vintage to drink now, but few wines will survive decades in the cellar. 3/5

Charles’s top picks from Chablis 2024

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Beyond the beguiling wines, there is a charm to the Willamette Valley that I haven’t found in other American wine regions. This is a place where small producers can still build something for themselves.

Access to vineyard land, or at the very least quality fruit, is not beyond the reach of an aspiring new producer.

As a result, the upper tier of the Willamette Valley is a place where longstanding producers of renown like Eyrie, Bethel Heights and Cristom have new peers like Martin Woods, Hundred Suns and Morgen Long.

Willamette is a winemaking community. A place where new producers are welcomed like old friends, and community trumps competition. It was that way in the beginning, and it remains that way today.

Three under-the-radar Willamette Valley producers to track

Granville Wine Co

Jackson Holstein is a second-generation winegrower in the Dundee Hills (his father, Allen, was one of the region’s pioneering winegrowers in the late 1970s), and he’s making brilliant wines at Granville Wine Co., which he owns with his wife, Ayla.

A farmer first, Holstein’s deft hand at winemaking is immediately obvious from his Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays and brilliant sparkling wines. Granville’s first vintage was a small production in 2014, when both were still working day jobs. In 2018, the winemaking got serious, with the Holsteins building a winery and upping production.

Holstein grew up here in the nascent days of the Willamette Valley and is fully aware of what that means.

‘It’s one thing to be a multigenerational producer in a region with centuries of wine-related history or culture, like in Piedmont or Burgundy,’ Holsteins reflects. ‘It’s entirely different when the culture is still being established and defined, like it is here in the Willamette Valley.

‘The previous generation of pioneers and dreamers did their part; now it’s our turn. We’re out to show the world that Oregon’s full potential hasn’t yet been realised. We’re really just getting started.’

Holstein feels a sense of duty to build on the work of those who came before him and his contemporaries. At Granville, he’s crafting wines that would surely make those pioneers proud.

Evesham Wood and Haden Fig

I don’t think there are better Pinot Noirs for the money, anywhere in the world, than the ones being made by Erin Nuccio. To be clear, these aren’t just great values; they’re great wines.

Nuccio fell into wine after college, working at a wine shop near his home in Arlington, Virginia. He found himself drawn to the wines of the Old World, and it was then that he tasted his first Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs.

A trip to Northern California, with a desire to learn to grow and make wine, eventually landed Nuccio in the Willamette Valley in 2007.

‘I became friends with Russ Rainey, the founder of Evesham Wood in the Eola-Amity Hills, and started apprenticing under him,’ explains Nuccio. ‘I produced my Haden Fig wines in the Evesham Wood warehouse. My plan was to slowly build an estate, so Russ and I would drive the hills looking at sites he thought would make great vineyards.

‘As I started making Pinot Noirs from different sites like Cancilla Vineyard and Mahonia Vineyard, I quickly realised that a big part of what makes the Willamette Valley so special is that the same grape can be grown on very similar sites, sometimes right next to each other, and produce wildly different expressions of Pinot Noir, Nuccio concludes.’

White Walnut Estate

Chris Mazepink arrived in the Willamette Valley in 2000 and worked at some of the region’s larger producers, including Archery Summit, Shea Wine Cellars, and Benton Lane. In those winemaking roles, his charge was to craft wines that adhered to established house styles.

‘I moved to the Willamette Valley, from New York, in the summer of 2000 to dive into my graduate studies in fermentation science and viticulture at Oregon State University,’ says Mazepink.

‘At the time, most wineries in Oregon didn’t even have websites, and frankly, I had just purchased my first cell phone, so that first job involved me faxing my resume to every winery I could find a fax number for – less than 50 in total! Frankly, at that point, the Oregon wine industry was a bit more of an in-state novelty. Fast forward to today, and we’re a globally recognised, qualitative epicentre for benchmark examples of both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.’

His White Walnut Estate, planted on the eastern flank of the Dundee Hills, was established in 2015 and 2016. The estate sits just below the Domaine Drouhin estate, on a former walnut orchard.

It is a complete departure from his previous work. Mazepink farms organically and biodynamically, and leans heavily into the Dundee Hills. ‘I’m the only producer in the region who is making wine with exclusively Dundee Hills fruit,’ he informs me.

Mazepink’s nine wines (four Chardonnays and five Pinot Noirs) are an exploration of the Dundee Hills terroir and an expression of his diverse farming. His approach as a winegrower has given him fantastic material to work with as a winemaker.

He has amassed a collection of various Pinot Noir and Chardonnay clones and has taken his ‘polyculture’ approach to planting his White Walnut and Apple Field estate sites.

His Worden Hill Road bottling is an exploration of sites along the thoroughfare that cuts through the heart of the Dundee Hills. ‘The Dundee Hills are painted with too broad a brush,’ Mazepink says, ‘there are numerous non-fruit descriptors that I get from those sites.’

A more robust story of the Dundee Hills going beyond their signature fresh red fruits.

The Willamette Valley 2023 vintage rating: 5/5

The 2023 Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays alike show a consistency of quality, and as has been the case over the last few years, I find the Chardonnays showing slightly better.

The somewhat abrupt nature of the growing season meant winegrowers had to be ready come harvest time. You might see a couple of examples of wines where alcohol may have gotten away from people, but generally, there is an elegance that matches the vintage’s generosity.

Wines from rising Willamette Valley producers to have on your radar

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How much do you know about Oregon’s Willamette Valley and its origins as a famous growing region for superb Pinot Noir wines, as well as top Chardonnay?

Scroll down to test your level with our short Willamette Valley quiz, featuring five multiple-choice questions created by Decanter’s North America editor, Clive Pursehouse.

Decanter Premium subscribers can also read Pursehouse’s new, in-depth review of the Willamette Valley 2023 vintage, covering both Pinot Noir and also the best Chardonnay wines to look out for.

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‘Barely 1,000 acres [405ha] of Chardonnay vines existed in the entire state when we purchased our X Novo parcel in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA in 2010,’ says Craig Williams of X Novo, one of the most sought-after Chardonnay sites in Oregon.

‘Pinot Gris acreage was almost three times greater. This lack of Chardonnay – a noble variety that produces world-class white wines – seemed at odds with the focus on other cool-climate grapes.’

‘In 1986, Chardonnay was 25% of the plantings in the Willamette Valley,’ says Chris Mazepink, owner and winemaker at White Walnut Estate in the Dundee Hills.

‘Today, it’s only 5%, but the quality has never been better, and you can argue that Chardonnay has now eclipsed Pinot Noir among the top bottlings.’

Scroll down to see Clive Pursehouse’s notes and scores for 20 of the best Chardonnays from Willamette Valley’s 2023 vintage

Slow burn

Chardonnay from Willamette Valley has taken a circuitous path to its current success.

The valley’s oldest Chardonnay vines are in the Eyrie vineyard, where a single hectare was planted by David Lett in 1966.

Lett had acquired cuttings in 1964 from Joe Torres, who at the time was the vineyard manager for the Draper Ranch in St Helena; they spent a year in the ground in a nursery block near Corvallis, Oregon, before being transplanted.

A little later in the same year, Charles Coury planted the 108 clone from the University of California, Davis at his vineyard. The vines at both sites, and many of the valley’s other pioneering Chardonnay plantings, were California ‘heritage’ clones.

While successful in California’s warmer conditions, they had difficulty ripening in the cool, wet, nascent days of the Willamette Valley wine industry.

The arrival of Dijon clones, spurred on by Willamette pioneer David Adelsheim, saw a rise in Chardonnay plantings and increasingly reliable ripening.

But then, as climate change began to affect the valley, those early plantings of California clones went from being unreliable to creating perhaps its most compelling Chardonnays.

‘When I first started in 2000, we had the 1998 and ’99 vintages and then that year,’ recalls Mazepink.

‘People were excited that we got Chardonnay ripe three years in a row. At the time, it was accepted that one in three would be a washout. Now everything gets sufficiently ripe – it’s not nearly as variable as it was.’

Burgundian influence

In 2007, Evening Land Vineyards hired Dominique Lafon to come from Burgundy and consult on its newly acquired project in the Eola-Amity Hills.

His vision single-handedly changed the way Oregon producers approached Chardonnay. Rather than chasing ripeness, the focus shifted to picking earlier to preserve acidity and freshness.

Among his early devotees was Ken Pahlow (pictured, above), whose Walter Scott label now produces some of the valley’s top Chardonnays every vintage.

The modern-day Willamette Valley Chardonnay is one of balance, gorgeously rich texture and fruited depth that I often characterise as ‘lemon curd’, and a soaring freshness, of both acidity and minerality.

The Pacific ocean’s influence lends a saline throughline to these well-made Chardonnays, irrespective of producer.

Meanwhile, the creation of regional signatures has been assisted by the use of reductive winemaking (minimising exposure to oxygen) and, in some circles, the adoption of the ‘black Chardonnay’ technique.

This is a name now being applied to a production method that involves vigorous crushing of the grapes and ample aeration, which causes the must to turn rapidly to a dark brown or ‘black’ colour; the aim is to increase both the texture of the wine and its capacity for ageing, while also fending off oxidation once in the bottle.

London’s A&B Vintners has gone all-in on the Willamette Valley and its Chardonnays. Says buying director Simon Davies: ‘I think what Oregon does spectacularly well is compete at that mid-to upper level with white Burgundy.

‘The likes of Morgen Long, Crowley, Abbott Claim, Martin Woods and Arterberry Maresh, among others, are all producing wines that are intense, ageworthy and exhibit incredible uniqueness of site.’

François Millet made wine for more than three decades at Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé, the iconic Chambolle-Musigny estate.

He speaks more like a poet than a winemaker and treats terroir with a deeply personal approach.

2023 marked his first vintage in the Willamette Valley, making the wines at La Biblioteca in Dundee. While he likens terroir to personalities, Millet thinks of vintages as similar to a mood.

‘The mood of the 2023 vintage in the Willamette Valley was determined but with generosity,’ he says.

‘It’s positive and determined, sure, but still very elegant. It’s not at all aggressive and has allowed for wines to be quite beautiful.’

100-point Oregon!

A ‘sweet spot’ is how I would characterise 2023 in the Willamette Valley – its cool beginnings akin to 2022 and its warm, dry finish similar to 2021.

The conditions, together with the rising tide of Chardonnay in the valley, delivered the first 100-point wine from Oregon in Decanter’s history: Bethel Heights, The High Wire Chardonnay 2023, a simply mesmerising wine from own-rooted Wente clone vines planted in 1977.

‘When my family purchased the property in 1978, these vines were just a year old – fragile sticks in the ground,’ says winemaker Ben Casteel. ‘Ripening them was a challenge every vintage, spanning my late father’s entire career and the first eight years of mine.

‘Over the years, they had every chance to replant with an earlier-ripening variety, but they chose patience,’ he continues. ‘That patience is what brought us to this moment, 47 years later.’

Pursehouse’s top Willamette Valley 2023 Chardonnay

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The wines that were made from the 2023 vintage in Oregon’s Willamette Valley are beautiful.

They readily offer the elegance and delicacy for which cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are known throughout the wine world. These are remarkable wines.

The results of a growing season that started cool and slow, and ended rapidly, there’s a grace and refinement stamped across them, from their aromatics to their polished finishes.

And there’s a precocious nature to them, too: perfect for those without patience.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for 20 of the finest Pinot Noirs from Willamette Valley’s 2023 vintage

Willamette Valley 2023: 5/5

The 2023 Willamette Valley Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs show equally consistent quality, but as has been the case over the last few years, I find that the Chardonnays are showing slightly better.

The somewhat abrupt nature of the end of the growing season meant that wine-growers had to be ready come harvest time. You might see a few examples of wines where alcohol hasn’t been kept under control, but generally, there’s an elegance to match the generosity of the vintage.

Cool customer

The past three Willamette Valley vintages, 2021 to 2023, feel like a payback of sorts for the disastrous 2020.

The 2021s showed a readiness that allowed for prompt release to make up for the lost inventories created by the 2020 wildfires, while the long, cool 2022 vintage showcased the true beauty of the Willamette Valley.

It’s a properly cool climate, with prime growing conditions extending late into October, which in 2023 meant the wines could be picked at perfection, particularly for those of us who love the cooler years, such as 2019, 2011, 2010 and 2007.

Perhaps 2023 has trumped both 2021 and 2022 – almost a perfect blend of the two, offering the elegance and refinement for which the region is known, coupled with generosity and early availability.

‘The velocity of the vintage was the theme for 2023,’ says Ken Pahlow, owner and winemaker at Walter Scott.

Willamette Valley experienced its shortest period from bud break to bloom, which typically takes about 60 days; in 2023, it was reduced to about 40.

The cool spring was then moved along quickly by very warm May weather. Onésimo ‘Ony’ Mora and his brothers farm more than 20ha in the Willamette Valley.

‘I wouldn’t describe 2023 as a hot vintage, but it was definitely on the dry side,’ Mora explains. ‘When bud break started in April, things seemed pretty “normal” by recent Willamette standards.’

Rapid ripening

‘In June, suddenly we felt that it was coming on fast,’ Mora continues.

‘For us, it meant we immediately needed to do the same work at all of the different vineyards we’re managing, almost at the same time. If we get behind on our hand labour or our organic sprays, then it’s possible we don’t ever really catch back up. We managed to stay on top of it, but barely.’

‘As harvest neared, the “optimal” weather pattern continued, advancing ripeness for us in every site very uniformly,’ recalls Pahlow.

‘Instead of picking over several weeks, it was very compressed. Capturing freshness where things went quickly was the primary driver. Everything got ripe at the same time. We picked several sites on the same day. That’s never happened before.’

The same logistical issues that the Mora brothers dealt with in the vines were faced by winemakers such as Pahlow in cellars up and down the valley, as all of their fruit came in at almost exactly the same time.

Tomorrow: The concluding part of the report and reviews of the best Chardonnays

Top 10 wines of the vintage:

Bethel Heights, The High Wire Chardonnay, Eola-Amity Hills 100pts

Martin Woods, Hyland Vineyard Pinot Noir, McMinnville 99pts

Granville, Koosah Vineyard Chardonnay, Eola-Amity Hills 98pts

Walter Scott, Koosah Vineyard Chardonnay, Eola-Amity Hills 98pts

White Walnut Vineyard, Estate Chardonnay, Dundee Hills 98pts

Beaux Fréres, Rogue Vines Chardonnay, Ribbon Ridge 97pts

Crowley, Phoebe Chardonnay, Willamette Valley, 97pts

Goodfellow Family Cellars, Richard’s Cuvée Chardonnay, Ribbon Ridge, 97pts

Cristom, Jessie Vineyard Pinot Noir, Eola-Amity Hills, 97pts

Evesham Wood, Cuvée J Pinot Noir, Eola-Amity Hills, 97pts

Pursehouse’s 20 great Pinot buys from 2023

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With the imminent declaration by the INAO of new premiers crus for Marsannay, the long arc of the village’s fortune is trending further to the good.

The history of the village is among Burgundy’s oldest, but it’s a tale of ancient vineyards fallen into disrepute that should soon see their redemption and receive the recognition they have long deserved.

Scroll down for 15 Marsannay wines from the potential premier cru sites

History

The first mention of vines in Marsannay is in the Chronicle of Bèze (a 12th century text written by a Burgundian monk, telling the history of the monastery St-Pierre de Beze), which states that the monks of Bèze recorded a donation of vines in 630AD by Duke Amalgaire, who founded the Abbey the year before. These vines remained the property of the church for more than 1,000 years.

By the 13th century, the Dukes of Burgundy owned vines here as well. A wine press constructed in 1238 by Alix de Vergy can still be seen in the village of Chenôve.

The ducal vines reverted to the French crown when Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy, died in 1477.

A question of reputation

Until the French Revolution, the wines of Marsannay were highly regarded and expensive. But the industrialisation of Dijon in the 19th century increased demand for everyday wines that workers could afford, and much of the Pinot Noir once planted was uprooted and replaced with Gamay and Aligoté.

The region became known for inexpensive wines rather than top quality ones. Their reputation continued to decline throughout phylloxera, and by the time the appellation system was put in place in the 1930s, the vines in Marsannay only had the right to the basic Bourgogne appellation. The village-level Marsannay appellation did not come into existence until 1987.

Although the legendary Domaine Clair-Daü (forerunner of Domaine Bruno Clair) began to replant Pinot in the early 20th century, the renaissance gathered speed only slowly, until 2002 when plans for Marsannay premiers crus started to take shape.

In 2024, the INAO announced which climats would potentially be elevated.

Now the precise limits of each premier cru are being delineated, and Marsannay growers hope that their premiers crus will be announced soon.

The 14 climats in consideration for promotion:

Clos du Roy

Les Longeroies (Bas and Dessus)

En La Montagne

Es Chezots (to be changed to En Grands Vaux)

La Charme aux Prêtres

Le Boivin

Les Grasses Têtes

Le Clos de Jeu

Saint-Jacques

Les Favières

Au Champ Salomon

Aux Genelières

Le Clos

Champs Perdrix

Exploring the terroir of the potential premiers crus

Marsannay is a large and complex appellation. It stretches over three villages: Chenôve, Marsannay-la-Côte and Couchey, and includes more than 360 hectares of Marsannay.

Nearly 100ha more are authorised to exclusively produce Marsannay Rosé (the only appellation to allow village-level rosé).

To simplify matters, the appellation can be considered in three parts: Chenôve and the northern part of Marsannay; west of Marsannay and south to the village of Couchey, and south of Couchey to the border with Fixin.

North

In the north, the ancient terroir of Le Chapitre was for centuries the property of the cathedral of Autun. It was classified merely at regionallevel until 2019, and thus is not up for promotion to premier cru. The terroir, however, is comparable to the Clos du Roy climat, which will likely be promoted.

At the top of the Le Chapitre slope, the subsoil is white oolite and Comblanchien limestone. Further down, it was shattered into smaller stones by the freeze-thaw cycles of the ice age, forming beds of fractured rock called ‘grèzes litées’.

The Clos du Roy, former property of the Dukes of Burgundy and the French crown, shares this same structure. Both vineyards have superb conditions for growing quality grapes.

Three more climats will also be promoted here. The most prominent is the large Les Longeroies, subdivided into the upper portion (Dessus des Longeroies) and the lower (Bas des Longeroies). Soils here are similar, but there are no grèzes litées.

At the top of the slope, facing due south, lies En La Montagne, planted mostly above 300m of elevation. This cool site borders the valley called the Combe du Pré.

At the base of the slope lies a climat called Es Chezots, which many growers have been spelling ‘Les Échézeaux’, but it will soon be changed to En Grands Vaux to avoid confusion with the more famous vineyard of that name in Vosne.

Centre

West and south of Marsannay down to the village of Couchey, there are eight climats to be defined and possibly promoted.

La Charme aux Prêtres, Le Boivin, Les Grasses Têtes, Le Clos de Jeu, Saint-Jacques and Les Favières all lie at mid-slope, face east-southeast, and are protected from the cooling influence of the Combe du Pré.

This group of crus lies mostly on crinoidal limestone (what the French call ‘calcaire à entroques’ from the slightly older Bajocian Age), although the top of the slope is often white oolitic limestone, and the base of the slope there is a deeper layer of marl.

Over the border into the village of Couchey but on the same types of soils are Au Champ Salomon and Les Favières.

Slightly south and further up the slope is Aux Genelières, solidly on the band of limestone.

South

South of Couchey, near the border with Fixin, there are steeper slopes and less soil. Le Clos features a shallow slope, marl soil and an east exposition.

The large climat of Champs Perdrix rises above Le Clos to over 300 m elevation on the border with Fixin has a combination of Bathonian limestone and marl soil.

Styles and taste

Arguably more important than the minutiae of subsoils and expositions is what the wines actually taste like.

Approximately three-quarters of the production of Marsannay is red. While blended wines can sometimes be light in colour with high-toned red berry and pomegranate aromas, those that proudly bear the name of a specific climat can be inky dark and powerfully tannic depending on vintage.

These will feature the mineral-inflected black fruit of the Côte de Nuits, some with a distinctive savoury or gamey note.

The whites can vary from floral, forward and somewhat soft, to incisive, lemony and vibrant.

So what makes Marsannay worth your attention? In short, the wines are delicious and not ruinously expensive.

The best of the proposed premiers crus are on a par with the other premiers crus of the northern Côte de Nuits. They resemble the wines of Fixin and Gevrey with which they share many common points, and their often-reasonable prices make them even easier to love.

Eight Names to Know

Domaine Charles Audoin

Fifth-generation Cyril Audoin is at the head of a 14ha domaine based in Marsannay that focuses heavily on single-vineyard bottlings from the best climats.

The domaine was certified organic in 2018 and farms around 9ha. Cyril’s style is fresh, perfumed and elegant.

Domaine René Bouvier

Bernard Bouvier is the president of the ODG Marsannay (the Organisation for Defence and Management of the Marsannay appellation). He took over from his father René in 1992, and now farms more than 30ha in a range of appellations in his home base of Gevrey, in Marsannay, and in Fixin.

He produces a profusion of different cuvées, including a number entirely made without sulphur, although sulphur use is generally minimal before bottling.

His style is further refined using a high percentage of whole clusters in the fermentations and a low percentage of new oak barrels. These are powerful wines capable of long ageing.

Domaine Bruno Clair

Domaine Bruno Clair is one of the successor domaines to Burgundian legend Domaine Clair-Daü, and the family still maintains significant holdings in many of the Marsannay climats.

Founder Joseph Clair was instrumental in replanting Marsannay with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and his son Bruno has long been a champion of the wines of his native village.

The wines of this domaine are classic references for the village and a marvellous way to discover the possibilities of Marsannay.

Domaine Derey Frères

The Derey family has been winegrowers in the area since 1650, although they began bottling at the domaine only after World War II.

The domaine is currently directed by three young brothers, Romain, Maxime and Pierre-Marie. The family owns 20ha between Dijon and Gevrey, but more than half is located in four Marsannay crus, including three up for promotion: Champs Perdrix, Les Genelières, and Champs Salomon. 2023 is their first vintage to be certified organic.

Domaine Jean Fournier

Domaine Jean Fournier is now run by Laurent Fournier, a busy man: his domaine extends over 22ha (all but 2.5ha of which are in Marsannay).

He has been the driving force behind the efforts to classify the premiers crus of Marsannay.

As with several producers in the village, he uses a generous proportion of whole bunches, and low levels of sulphur and new oak. His domaine was certified organic until the very difficult 2016 vintage, when he lost this certification, although he is now once again certified. The style of these wines is complex but understated and not overly marked by barrel ageing.

Château de Marsannay

The Château de Marsannay owns 40ha of vines, including a number of the future premiers crus in Marsannay.

The property was founded in 1990 by the Boisseaux family, owners of the negociant Patriarche. The larger group was sold to Castel in 2011; the following year, Boisseaux family sold the Château de Marsannay (and the Château de Meursault) to Olivier Halley.

The property is now run by Stéphane Follin-Arbelet and Technical Director Sylvain Pabiot, and achieved organic certification in 2021. The wines have considerably improved in recent years, making this a domaine to watch.

Domaine Philippe Naddef

Philippe Naddef, based in Fixin, inherited 2.5ha from his grandfather, Dr Denis Bizot. Unlike his father, Philippe worked in wine (at Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé), and gradually built up his vineyard holdings to 6ha.

He has recently taken retirement, and has been succeeded by his son Michel. Michel has worked alongside his father since 2008; he continues to make the Domaine Philippe Naddef wines as they have always been made, but he also makes wine under his own name.

These wines are made in a different style – picked later, extracted more gently, sulphured very lightly, and less marked by new wood. Both labels, however, produce a delicious range of wines.

Domaine Sylvain Pataille

Sylvain Pataille makes some of the most delectable wines in the northern Côte de Nuits from his base in Marsannay. Although he did not come from a winemaking family, he studied oenology at school and has worked (and continues to work) as a consulting oenologist.

He acquired his first hectare of vines in 1999 and has slowly built up a domaine of 15ha, primarily through fermage and metayage contracts.

‘There have been many evolutions in my wine’, says Pataille, ‘I have found that the secret doesn’t exist,’ yet he generally ferments using mostly whole clusters, minimal sulphur, and few new oak barrels.

The style of his Marsannay is rich, layered and complex. He is also a great champion of Aligoté.

15 Marsannay wines to try:

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With his laconic wit and no-nonsense style, English-born Kevin Judd could easily be taken for a Kiwi. After decades in New Zealand, he has their straight talk down to a tee.

Judd, founder and winemaker of Greywacke in Marlborough, New Zealand, was in London with his wife and business partner Kimberley Judd to present the first-ever vertical tasting of Chardonnay wines to take place outside their winery.

From zero to world fame

The Judds are usually associated with Sauvignon Blanc, for good reason. It is their chief grape variety at Greywacke and made Kevin’s name. As the founding winemaker at Cloudy Bay, established in 1985 by David Hohnen, Kevin is a central figure in New Zealand’s wine history.

He helped inaugurate the country’s stellar ascent as a winemaking nation with Cloudy Bay’s pioneering style of Sauvignon Blanc in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

After 25 years at Cloudy Bay, Kevin founded Greywacke in 2009. ‘When I left Cloudy Bay, I had no money, no vineyard and no winery,’ he says. ‘But I turned 50 and I had some experience. A guy called Ivan Sutherland tapped me on the shoulder.’

Sutherland, who had been the viticulturist at Cloudy Bay, owned farmland and had established Dog Point Wines. ‘In 2009, there was the global financial crisis and there were spare grapes,’ Kevin continues.

‘Sutherland had heard we were thinking of starting our own thing, so we set up a business partnership. They also provided space in their winery. We still buy 70% of our fruit from the Sutherland family. We went from zero to exporting wine to 55 countries in the world. 95% of our production is exported.’

Chardonnay in the spotlight

Six Chardonnays, from the vintages 2010, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2021 and the current release, 2023, were lined up. ‘Chardonnay is quite a small part of our production,’ says Kevin.

‘We believe that Chardonnay in Marlborough can make fantastic wine, but it lives in the humongous shadow of Sauvignon Blanc.’

Most of the wines are made from the Mendoza clone of Chardonnay. ‘It has big berries and tiny berries in the same bunch, about as small as match heads; it is what the French call millerandage and we call hen-and-chicken. It is a clone that gives us immense concentration and natural acidity,” he adds.

Even when the fruit is fully ripe, the acidity is strident, which explains the alcohol level, the full citrus expression and the concentration of the wines. The wines also contain some clone 95 and a far smaller portion of the newer 548 clone.

High in the sky

‘We are at the latitude of 41.5° South,’ Kevin explains. Transposed to the northern hemisphere, he exlpains, this latitude ‘runs right through Italy and Spain’. In fact, it runs right between Rome and Naples in Italy and just a little north of Barcelona in Spain.

‘The sun is very high in the sky, but because we are surrounded by ocean, completely maritime, it very rarely goes above 30°C. On a really hot day, it goes to 32°C, but the night temperatures then are usually around 15°C. We get this incredible natural acidity and really intense fruit flavours,’ he says.

‘We get young winemakers from Chile and South Africa coming to discover how to make Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, but it is our climate that is so unique.’ He’s right: the sunshine and briskness of Marlborough is on full display in the wines.

Consistent style

The climate is indeed key to the style. All the wines are luminous, bright and punchy, with potent alcohols of 14% and above. In terms of winemaking, Kevin outlines his core elements for Chardonnay.

All fruit is hand-picked and whole-bunch pressed. If there is sedimentation at all, it is light. Most juice goes straight to barrel.

‘All of these wines had fairly heavy solid contents,’ he notes. All the ferments are spontaneous. ‘The great thing about wild fermentation is that it is a microbiological zoo,’ he explains, believing that the diverse yeast population at the beginning of the ferment lends complexity to his wines, which all go through full malolactic conversion.

All the wines are fermented in small French, ‘quite heavily toasted’ barrels made by the Tonnellerie de Mercurey.

‘I like Chardonnay, I like oak, it’s just like tomatoes and basil, a match made in heaven,’ Kevin quips, but notes that there never was more than 20% new oak.

Ageing gracefully

Throughout the years, he has held onto these principles and made no stylistic changes to the winemaking. The only change was in 2019 when he decided to age the wines for 11 rather than 18 months. He emphasises that this was a purely logistical decision, so barrels would not be empty for half a year.

The only reason the Judds did not show their initial 2009 Chardonnay vintage is due to its rarity. Kimberley explains that they kept fewer reserves at the beginning.

But the 2010, a favourite of the Judds, just shone. Having tasted these pristine mature vintages, the new wines, impressive in their own right, cried out for bottle age.

And while two debates were settled a long time ago, this splendid vertical reinforced without a doubt that New World wines evolve and mature beautifully – and do so under screwcap.

Greywacke Chardonnay: Six to try

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The village streets of Champagne’s Côte des Blancs are tightly packed with domaines – squeezed into old houses and courtyards, jam-packed with tractors and lorries during harvest and bottling.

Yet one of its hottest addresses, Champagne Dhondt-Grellet, sits away from this hustle and bustle, in the quiet village of Flavigny on the plains, nestled behind an unassuming treeline.

Scroll down for notes and scores for six Dhondt-Grellet wines to try

It’s here that Adrien Dhondt, now in his 13th year in charge of the wines, has slowly been offering his take on what modern blanc de blancs can be.

Upon my first visit in 2022, the domaine, despite early success, was still very much a family farmhouse. It had played host to his parents’ domaine since they took their vineyards out of the village co-operative in 1986 in order to produce their own wines.

Descending into the vaulted cellars, though, reveals Dhondt’s intent with the wines nowadays: while his parents had produced traditionally styled blanc de blancs, the cellar is now stacked high with Burgundy barrels, the only steel tank in sight kept above ground for the family’s reserve wine.

Beside the farmhouse lies a smart new glass-fronted tasting room, with the smell of fresh paint still lingering.

Dhondt’s trademark baseball cap and shorts may have slowly given way to a touch more formality as he transitions from up-and-comer to established figure in the region, but he remains a winemaker of irresistible ease, charm and unpretentiousness.

Earlier this year, despite his increasing fame, heightened wine prices and decreasing availability, I arrived to find him engaged in conversation with a small group of visitors from Iceland, happily explaining the sort of Champagne basics that some similarly celebrated winemakers may feel to be beneath them.

In the vines

Dhondt’s vineyard holdings are geographically particular: the vineyards are spread not only over the famous Chardonnay region of the Côte des Blancs itself, but also in the Sézanne – the slightly sunnier southern neighbour.

The main focus, though, is on the northern part of Côte des Blancs via the famous grand cru village of Cramant, as well as Cuis and Grauves on the other side of the hill, both known to be cooler and later-ripening, with more varied soil types than the pure chalky strictness of the main Côte.

Dhondt released a limited run of wines from a négociant project under his own name in 2024, sourced from bought-in grapes from Avize, Oger and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger.

These are blanc de blancs with pristine, ripe fruit and 100% oak vinification that will appeal to anyone searching for Champagne-level refreshment with Burgundy-like body and complexity.

Although Dhondt himself is resistant to the ‘Burgundy with bubbles’ label sometimes applied to this new-wave style of Chardonnay, feeling it ‘denigrates Champagne’s terroir’.

The style never strays, though, into overt, sweet-toned oakiness or vinosity, despite his professed love for ‘wines with a bit of substance and concentration’ and the continual rotation of new oak in the cellar (which can form up to one third of the barrel usage in some cuvées).

Some of the wines’ crunch and freshness is likely down to the cooler positioning of many of the parcels, and perhaps also down to viticulture, which avoids pesticides, herbicides and synthetic chemical treatments, although is not certified organic.

Geographic imprint

All of Dhondt’s wines today have a strong geographical imprint. The more approachable Sézanne fruit forms the basis of the new entry-level Roc Solare cuvée (from a 2021 base), which replaces the Dans un Premier Temps cuvée.

Terres Fines comes from the cooler villages of Cuis and Grauves, tending to offer a little more precision.

Although more affordably priced, both present fully-realised, expressive examples of Dhondt’s developing style. Both excel, too, at capturing the freshness of the 2021 harvest without some of the angularity sometimes present in this complicated year.

Being a specialist in Cuis, Dhondt also makes Les Nogers, one of the few single-vineyard bottlings of this village.

There are two bottlings from the grand cru of Cramant. The cuvée called Cramant is a blend of two parcels, one in the lieu-dit Les Garennes, and the other from Les Longues Verges which is affected by the court-noué virus which concentrates the grapes.

‘It’s not the stereotypical style for the village,’ Dhondt says, pointing to the richer, deeper soils found in the northerly part of the village.

Le Bateau, also from Cramant, is a single, mostly south-facing 0.14ha site that has the more classic, chalky terroir. The current release of 2019, which Dhondt calls ‘the most beautiful vintage in Champagne in a long, long time,’ is already ascending to the ranks of Champagne’s most sought-after, rare and pricy blanc de blancs.

New to the lineup is the blanc de noirs La Côte aux Vents (‘the windy hillside’), which plays on the fact that Cuis and Grauves have always historically had a fair percentage of the red grape Pinot Meunier planted.

It’s testimony to Dhondt’s viticulture that, even in the torrid 2021 season, he harvested ripe and expressive Meunier, yielding a beautifully sprightly curio in one of the region’s most compelling blanc de blancs portfolios.

Six Dhondt-Grellet wines to try

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A complex white Burgundy, majestic Rioja Gran Reserva or silky, bright Pinot Noir wine from one of several key growing regions can all be fantastic choices to drink with turkey.

Classic styles when pairing wine with turkey include:

• Full-bodied Chardonnay, such as those from Burgundy or California
• Pinot Noir
• Mature Bordeaux, Rioja or Barolo
• Beaujolais (Gamay)

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Basics: what kind of wine goes with turkey?

Turkey is not a very powerful meat and its relatively low fat content means it can dry out quickly during cooking. 

Great wine matches with turkey include relatively full-bodied white wines or medium-bodied reds with low-to-medium tannin levels and high acidity. 

Turkey’s lack of fat means there is little to dampen down prominent, mouth-coating tannins associated with some younger, bolder red wines.

Bold tannins could eclipse all that hard work in the kitchen. Yet tannins generally soften over time, which is why a few years of bottle age can change the picture.

That said, ‘classic’ styles can vary in the glass according to winemaking decisions and vintage conditions.

Food and wine pairing is also highly subjective. Personal taste is always important, as expert Fiona Beckett recently wrote in defence of the concept.

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Pairing wine with turkey: a visual guide

Click on the turkey and wine pairing graphic below to see a full-size version.

Pairing wine with turkey at Christmas

Roast turkey for Christmas or Thanksgiving tends to arrive with an entourage that demands attention. 

‘As turkey has quite a subtle taste and a soft texture, the style of the wine will depend essentially on what accompanies the fowl at Christmas,’ said master sommelier Matthieu Longuère MS, wine development manager at Le Cordon Bleu London culinary school.

‘The classic trimmings that tend to be eaten alongside turkey for Christmas lunch are: a mountain of roasted potatoes, stuffing, carrots, parsnips, pigs in blankets, red cabbage, Brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, and an ocean of gravy,’ said Longuère.

‘This variety means that your choice of wine needs to be a good all-rounder. It should not be too tannic or it will clash with the sweetness of the cranberry sauce and root vegetables, and the sweet and sourness of the cabbage. 

‘Also, it cannot not be too heavy or too full-bodied, as it will overwhelm the soft turkey meat,’ he said, speaking to Decanter in 2024.

Acidity can help to refresh your palate as you wade through the array of dishes on the table.

Is red or white wine better for a turkey dinner?

An expert Decanter panel named white Burgundy as the best pairing with turkey back in 2011.

This beat Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Bordeaux blends, Pinot Noir and Californian Zinfandel in a tasting.

Longuère said it should be possible to find a wine in every colour that fits the bill, however. That’s good news if one of your fellow diners only drinks rosé, or white, red or orange. 

Red wine with turkey

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir often delivers wines of bright red fruit and refreshing acidity, albeit with varying levels of structure, and can be a great red wine choice for turkey. 

It’s still possible to find ‘value’ options in Burgundy, if you know where to look.

That said, premier or grand cru wines from top producers would likely deliver a memorable experience for anyone with access to them.

Decanter’s Burgundy correspondent, Charles Curtis MW, recently reviewed several Richebourg Grand Cru wines from Domaine Anne Gros.

Longuère recommended a good, five-year-old Pinot from Burgundy, Germany or also the UK, as well as from regions outside Europe.

Delicious Pinot Noir wines can be found across the world, from Mornington Peninsula in Australia and Central Otago in New Zealand to Oregon’s Willamette Valley in the US and Walker Bay in South Africa.

Some styles may be too lightweight. Decanter’s 2011 panel found a Volnay wine from Burgundy’s Côte de Beaune was ‘overwhelmed by the food.’ 

Younger reds can work, too. Longuère said ‘New World’ styles tend to be more approachable in youth, but also that decanting can help to ‘soften up’ younger wines in general.

Cru Beaujolais, produced from Gamay, is another fitting option, said Longuère. He advised looking towards lighter crus like Fleurie or Brouilly.

One feature of cooking turkey during the festive season is that the meat can last beyond the big day.

For cold roast turkey leftovers, food and wine pairing expert Fiona Beckett previously advised looking towards ‘a riper, more robustly fruity Pinot Noir from, say, California, Oregon or New Zealand’.

Mature red wines with turkey

Many wines built for long-term ageing have prominent tannins when young, although the character of these tannins can vary.

Nebbiolo (Barolo) and Cabernet Sauvignon are two grape varieties able to produce highly prized, long-lived wines that are generally high in tannin and acidity.

Tannins soften over time in the best bottlings, integrating into layer-upon-layer of delicious primary fruit and ‘tertiary’ flavours to offer a real treat at the table.

Longuère said: ‘If one is going for it, [I’d suggest] a 20-year-old Haut-Médoc or Barolo when they become really complex, with aromas of tobacco, autumn leaf and sweet oak, and feel like pure silk on the palate.’

Bordeaux’s brilliant 2005 vintage turned 20 years old in 2025, but don’t write off years that didn’t make quite so many headlines.

Charles Curtis MW recently explored the the charm of Bordeaux’s undervalued class of 2006.

Some vintages and wines evolve quicker than others, of course.

Bordeaux 2014 is a good place to look for relative value and wines offering drinking pleasure now. Several top names from the well-regarded 2015 vintage are also showing well in the glass a decade on from harvest.

Rioja with roast turkey: ‘a slam-dunk match’

Longuère also suggested Rioja Gran Reserva wines at least 10 years old as a potentially great match for turkey.

These wines are released with some bottle age and are often relatively good value in the fine wine world, he noted.

Wine writer Olly Smith is also a fan. ‘Turkey with all the trimmings and a high-end Rioja Gran Reserva is a slam-dunk wine match for Christmas day,’ he previously wrote for Decanter.

Read our Rioja wine buying guide

White wine with turkey

‘Barrel-fermented or barrel-matured white wine more than five years old would be ideal,’ said Longuère. 

He said examples include: ‘New World Chardonnay or Burgundy from Meursault or Chassagne-Montrachet, White Rioja Reserva or Gran Reserva, Sémillon-based white Pessac-Léognan in Bordeaux, [or] Chenin Blanc-based blends from South Africa.’

Chardonnay

A relatively full-bodied Chardonnay can be an enchanting accompaniment to your turkey, especially with traditional sides like bread sauce. 

Well-judged oak can bring some sweet spice notes, while creamy lactic acid may add depth alongside fruit flavours ranging from lemon and honey to ripe pear and quince. 

A backbone of acidity brings balance to the richness and should carve a path through all of those trimmings.

Good Chardonnays are often found in similar geographical areas to good Pinot Noir.

For those with the means and looking for something extra special, Decanter Burgundy correspondent Charles Curtis MW recently revisited the 2014 vintage in the grands crus of Chassagne- and Puligny-Montrachet.

Rosé and orange wines with turkey

Rosé needn’t just be for summer sipping. Longuère said fuller-bodied, more complex styles of rosé wines can be a hit with turkey at Christmas. 

Decanter’s Champagne correspondent, Tom Hewson, also wrote: ‘The [Christmas] main meal is tailor-made for Champagne’s deep and dark rosé de saignée.’ 

Many orange wines can be a great dining partner, wrote Ines Salpico, Decanter’s regional editor for Spain, Portugal and South America.

‘They usually have a herbal, savoury edge that brings a meal’s flavours to life, supported by gentle tannins and firm acidity.’

Search all Decanter wine reviews

This article has been updated in October 2025, including with new wine recommendations from Decanter experts.

Tasting notes: Wine with turkey inspiration

Examples of wines reviewed by Decanter experts at a range of different prices.

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With the release of the 2023 vintage, Gaja’s ‘Gaia & Rey’ Chardonnay turns 40 – a symbolic milestone for a pioneering wine. It was the first white produced by the renowned Barbaresco winery, the first Chardonnay to be born in the Langhe, and the first Italian white wine to undergo malolactic fermentation and ageing in barrique.

The wine’s label combines the name of owner Angelo Gaja’s grandmother, Clotilde Rey, and that of his firstborn, Gaia, born in 1979 (the very year the Chardonnay vineyard was planted in Treiso), representing the company’s roots and its future.

On its release, it seemed outright futuristic.

Find out more about the evolution of Gaja’s Gaia & Rey Chardonnay

In the Langhe at that time, farmers couldn’t even pronounce the word Chardonnay, while Piedmont was just beginning to make its name thanks to Barbaresco and, above all, Barolo.

In Italy, white wines were considered simple products for immediate consumption and by the end of the spring they would all be sold out.

‛But I believed that the Langhe region offered the right characteristics to produce a complex, long-lived white,’ recalls Angelo Gaja. ‛What inspired me was my meeting with Robert Mondavi, who wanted to make great white wines in Napa Valley, emulating Burgundy. I liked his open-mindedness and resourcefulness.’

Gaia & Rey was released quietly as a table wine, but it quickly built a loyal following, especially abroad, surprisingly complementing the sumptuous Gaja reds. Today, it is included in the Langhe DOC. Given its success, other producers in the Langhe began to consider following in its footsteps.

How it started

According to a report by the Nomisma research institute on Italian consumer perception, Piedmont is the leading Italian region for the production of quality red wines, the fourth for sparkling wines, but only sixth for still white wines.

Asti DOCG is by far the highest production Piedmontese wine (90 million bottles per year of sparkling wine and Moscato d’Asti), and numerous other districts are driven by white wines, such as Gavi, Roero Arneis, Erbaluce di Caluso, and Derthona Timorasso.

This perception is largely influenced by the success of Barolo and Barbaresco, but it could change. ‛We believe the future of wine lies at higher altitudes, and we see it as whiter,’ Gaia Gaja beams.

She’s referring to her family’s latest business project: the acquisition of 30 hectares of land in the municipality of Trezzo Tinella, mostly planted with Chardonnay and Sauvignon – grape varieties with which Gaja boasts solid experience (in addition to Gaia & Rey, the winery produces Sauvignon Alteni di Brassica and the Chardonnay-Sauvignon blend, Rossj-Bass).

Trezzo Tinella is located a few bends above Barbaresco, just enough to rise from 300 to 600 metres above sea level and benefit from a decidedly cooler microclimate. The soils alternate between sand and stone.

‘It’s a virgin place for viticulture, which is why we’re extending the experimental phase.’ For his part Angelo Gaja knows well that a terroir isn’t created overnight and confirms that he’s in no rush.

In the meantime, the Gaja family’s investment could inspire others to follow in their footsteps and help improve Piedmont’s reputation as a white wine region.

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Broadening horizons

‛It was the late 1980s, I had recently graduated from the Alba School of Oenology, and a friend and I pooled our funds to buy a bottle of Gaia & Rey. It was a revelation! Shortly afterward, I decided to plant a few rows of Chardonnay in my vineyard,’ says Sergio Germano, who owns a winery in Serralunga d’Alba and is currently president of the local producers’ consortium.

‛The Langhe wine scene is dominated by the native Nebbiolo, but white wines can carve out a space as a complement to the company’s range, or as a basis for comparison with foreign wines,’ he continues.

‘The desire for innovation is a good sign; it shows that the region is dynamic, although I don’t think the great Piedmontese reds are ready to give up their crown,’ reflects Chiara Boschis, a Barolo producer.

Germano agrees but acknowledges that ‘in the face of climate change, we need to be ready to rethink paradigms.’ After all, he already produces a high-altitude Riesling in Cigliè, outside the Barolo area.

A true alternative?

So, could the white wine, considered merely ‘a complement to the range or a challenge to foreign markets,’ become an alternative to traditional red wines? ‘Sometimes Gaia & Rey succeeds where our reds cannot.

‘In the 1984, 1994 and 2002 vintages we gave up producing the Barbaresco crus because the Nebbiolo hadn’t ripened to perfection, but Gaia & Rey was exceptional, a true alter ego of our reds,’ Gaia reasons.

‘Chardonnay adapts better to extreme climates; it doesn’t suffer from the swings between very cold and very hot vintages, and the phenolic ripeness of its skin is less decisive than in red grapes,’ she continues.

With its rich array of white grape varieties and a fortunate morphology (Piedmont literally means ‘at the foot of the mountains’), the region seems poised to broaden its horizons.

Chiara Boschis, too, has ventured into producing a few bottles of white wine for the first time from Nascetta grapes, an ancient Langhe variety now favoured by local winemakers.

Maybe Angelo Gaja’s belief is spreading: ‘We must learn to look at the present not with the eyes of yesterday, but with those of tomorrow, to have an open mind toward the future.’

At the same time, however, he preaches calm and composure, as his rural culture taught him: ‘Senza fretta,’ – no rush…

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In Burgundy, broadly speaking, there are two camps of red winemakers – those who destem their grapes, and those who do not.

The former can deliver fine, elegant wines with a very precise red fruit character. Anne Gros is among the most adept in this style.

I have been tasting at Domaine Anne Gros for a number of years. But it was a recent tasting of eight vintages of her Grand Cru Richebourg, organised in New York by wine collector Jim Finkel, that prompted me to look again at this lustrous domaine, because it has proven to be among the top echelon of producers in Vosne-Romanée today.

Scroll down for 15 Domaine Anne Gros wines tasted and rated

The history

The origins of the domaine can be traced back almost 150 years.

According to French historian and writer Jean-François Bazin, the story of the domaine starts with the move of Alphonse Gros (1804-1884) from Chaux in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits to Vosne-Romanée in 1853, but the true founder of the domaine was his son Louis-Gustave, born in 1831.

It was Louis-Gustave who purchased 2ha of a vineyard called Les Vérroilles in 1882. This vineyard was absorbed into Richebourg in the 1920s.

The domaine was expanded by Louis-Gustave’s son Jules and grandson Louis (1893-1951), to include the monopole of the Echézeaux lieu-dit Les Loächausses, and a parcel of nearly a hectare in the Clos de Vougeot, purchased in 1920.

According to Bazin, at its peak, Domaine Louis Gros included 2ha of Richebourg, 2.5ha of the best parts of the Clos de Vougeot, a half-hectare of Grands Echézeaux, the monopole of the Clos des Réas, and others – a grand total of 17.85ha.

Inheritance divisions begin

Louis Gros had four children: Gustave, Colette, François and Jean, who farmed the vineyard together from the death of their father until 1963, when the vineyards were split among them.

Gustave and Colette never married, and cooperatively formed Gros Frère et Soeur (later run by their nephew Bernard, and now by his son Vincent), while François and Jean struck out on their own.

The holdings of Jean Gros were eventually transmitted to his children Michel, Bernard and Anne-Françoise, while those of François were handed down to his daughter Anne, who is in the process of passing the domaine on to her children Paul, Julie and Marine.

The dust is finally beginning to settle on the Gros estates. As each domaine transitions to the next generation, the vineyards of Colette, which had been leased to Gros Frère et Soeur, have now been redistributed among the family.

The vineyards

These family exchanges bring the holdings of Domaine Anne Gros to 8.42ha in Burgundy. The largest surface is a large single parcel of 1.73ha in the village of Concœur, above Vosne-Romanée. This is classified under the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits appellation, with 0.73ha at the base of the slope planted to Pinot Noir, and the steeper slopes near the top (at 400m elevation) planted to Chardonnay.

The domaine also produces regional-level wines from 1.68ha located in Vosne and Flagey. These used to be classified as Bourgogne rouge and blanc respectively, but some have been reclassified as Coteaux Bourguignons.

The village-level Vosne comes from a superb 0.39ha parcel in Les Barreaux that was planted in 1903. Anne Gros purchased the parcel, located at the mouth of the combe that leads to Concœur, in 1988. The soil is limestone scree (grèzes litées), with a high active calcium content.

Anne’s son Paul says: ‘This is the same elevation as [Vosne premier cru] Petits Monts; it is right where the slope turns to face northeast, but otherwise this has everything needed to be premier cru’.

Anne simply describes it as, ‘my baby Richebourg’.

There are also 0.30ha in the Vosne lieu-dit of Aux Communes that Paul will produce, and a 1.1ha parcel of village-level Chambolle-Musigny in the lieu-dit Combe d’Orveau planted in white marl soils. As Anne says, ‘this [Chambolle] is the last parcel in the combe, next to Mugnier.’

The grands crus

The village and regional-level wines of this estate offer great value, but the pride of the domaine is understandably its four magnificent grand cru wines:

Echézeaux: The domaine owns 0.94ha in Les Loächausses, just south of the Echézeaux du Dessus climat in the historic heart of the appellation. This is complemented by 0.34ha in Les Beaux Monts Bas that is now farmed by Paul.

Grands Echézeaux: Anne and her children also acquired a 0.37ha slice of Grands Echézeaux in the 2022 Gros family reshuffle.

Clos de Vougeot: The domaine’s Clos de Vougeot is a Gros family favourite – the wine is voluptuous and accessible, showing well at an earlier age than the Richebourg, which is somewhat slower to open up. The grapes come from a 0.94ha parcel in a very well-regarded section of the vineyard known as Le Grand Maupertui. Anne’s holding was first planted in 1904. It is maintained by what growers call repiquage, where single vines are replaced as needed, but the vineyard as a whole is never replanted.

Richebourg: The jewel in the crown is the 0.62ha of Richebourg, which produces a wine that is slightly more aloof than the Clos de Vougeot, showing a fruit character that takes some time to shine through, firmer tannins, and more prominent acidity. The parcel lies mostly in Les Vérroilles, but a bit overlaps into Les Richebourgs. Part of the parcel is 75 years old, the balance is 50 years old, and both are planted in brown soil with limestone pebbles.

Winemaking

All of the grapes are destemmed and fermented in stainless steel tanks. The extraction is assured through a combination of gently punching down and pumping over, although Anne says that the Richebourg can support a firmer extraction.

The red wines are generally aged 14 months in barrel, with 20%-40% new oak, depending on the wine.

The whites are destemmed and pressed and the fermentation starts in stainless steel and finishes in barrel, one-quarter new.

Did you know?

The barrels at Domaine Anne Gros are normally sourced from three coopers: Damy, François Frères and Berthomieu/Ermitage (who steam the wood first before toasting it).

The southern French chapter

The family also has a property in the Minervois, Languedoc, where it farms 20ha in the high-altitude, limestone-rich terroirs of the appellation.

There are four accessible, easy-drinking varietal reds bottled under the IGP Côtes du Brian and a white labelled Vin de France, a blend of Vermentino and Roussanne.

In addition to the IGP wines, there is a Minervois from slightly younger vines called Les Fontanilles, and three old-vine cuvées from the Cazelles terroir of the Minervois appellation that reflect specific sites and differing proportions of old-vine Carignan, some of which come from 120-year-old vines.

As Paul and Julie take over more responsibility from their mother, nothing is standing still at Domaine Anne Gros.

Paul has recently launched his own domaine, Domaine Paul Tollot-Gros, vinifying some of the Bourgogne Rouge, village-level Vosne-Romanée and Echézeaux, experimenting with later picking and using some whole clusters.

The Domaine Anne Gros wines, however, remain true to their traditional style.

One can be certain that from the glorious summits of the Richebourg to the juicy, fruit-laden everyday wines from the Minervois, the range of wines at Domaine Anne Gros offers something for every taste and budget.

Domaine Anne Gros wines tasted and rated

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Margaret River 2023 Chardonnay vintage rating: 5+/5

A ‘perfect’ year for Chardonnay, unanimously considered to be one of the greatest vintages of the past decade.

Chardonnay 2023

If 2022 was a great year for Margaret River Chardonnay, then 2023 proved to be exceptional, thanks to consistent quality across the board.

Wineries that craft reliably excellent wines continued to do so, while ‘solid’ producers were gifted brilliant conditions to elevate their wines.

From a total of 73 wines submitted for tasting, an astonishingly high proportion achieved gold medal level (95-points in Decanter terms) or higher.

And while we can only publish a selection of them here, it’s worth noting that few entries were lower than a silver (90-94pts).

I don’t consider myself a generous scorer, but I’ve given these wines multiple passes and found them expressive, powerful, textural and complex, with persistence and an excellent line of fruit.

Looking for nuance

Undoubtedly, the 2023 Chardonnays are some of the Margaret River region’s best yet – and it’s a vibrant vintage in its youth. I’ve tasted some of these previously, and they’ve unfurled further with just a few more months in bottle.

While many possess fruit sweetness, delicacy and power, in tasting them I was particularly on the lookout for nuance.

Chardonnay is often referred to as a ‘winemaker’s grape’ for good reason, so a diversity of style is justified, as long as there is respect for the fruit, a sense of place in the wine, balance, harmony and clarity.

Margaret River doesn’t struggle for acidity (especially when the Gingin clone is concerned), and philosophies vary on malolactic fermentation, oak regimes and the use of solids in the winemaking process.

Regardless of philosophy, the techniques and choices in the winery should enhance rather than distract, and integrate to complete the wine’s story.

The greatest iterations have an unbreakable harmony and seamlessness to them.

Decanter vintage ratings – Margaret River Chardonnay

2022 5/5: A fantastic year on the warmer side. Effortless, though picking dates proved crucial and yields varied.

2021 4/5: The best wines are outstanding, however there were challenges with rain events and labour shortages due to COVID-19 which didn’t ensure a smooth vintage for all.

2020 5/5: An early, warm, and dry vintage with little disease or pest pressure. Low yields and high quality meant allocations were tight for those in demand.

2019 4/5: A late vintage and little Marri blossom proved challenging for yields, however cooler conditions favoured Chardonnay with intense fruit and acid retention.

2018 4/5: A classic, warm and dry year, providing long hang time. Cabernet Sauvignon really shone this year, but Chardonnay wasn’t far behind.

Conditions & comparisons

While Margaret River is lucky to enjoy a relatively consistent Mediterranean-type climate, the term ‘dream vintage’ has been used by multiple winemakers for 2023. ‘It’s probably one of the standout vintages of the last 25 years,’ says Larry Cherubino of Cherubino Wines.

Growing conditions were near perfect, with even flowering, consistent fruit set and moderate summer temperatures allowing gentle and even ripening.

There were no weather events, there was low disease and pest pressure, decent yields, a wet spring and well-timed top-up rains.

In comparison to other recent vintages, Cliff Royale of Flametree Wines explains: ‘2022 sits just behind 2023 (see vintage box below). Not because it wasn’t good, just because 2023 was exceptional.’

‘We’ve had three great vintages in a row – 2021, 2022, 2023 – ascending in terms of concentration of fruit and balance,’ adds Vanya Cullen of Cullen Wines (pictured, below).

‘2023 had elegance, balance and fruit power, and was great straight away. Whereas 2022 was more reserved.’

‘2023 was a graceful vintage,’ concludes Phil Hutchison, Leeuwin Estate. ‘I think it showcases this beautiful fruit purity, beautiful aromatics.

‘It’s one of those vintages that is going to be talked about a lot more down the track. It will easily be in the top five of the last 20 years, without doubt.’

Looking ahead

Margaret River is a wine region that produces two per cent of the nation’s total wine production, yet this is almost all premium production.

There’s no question that Margaret River is a name that should shine on the international stage.

However, let’s remember that premium does not equal heavy. One evolution I would like to see continue is that of lighter bottles on the tasting table.

While several wineries have made the jump to lightweight, there is scope for the figure to increase substantially in the coming years.

Click here for more reviews of the Margaret River 2023 Chardonnays

Margaret River 2023 Chardonnay

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Warren and Gillian Lilleyman had no idea what they were doing when they planted a vineyard in Margaret River in southwest Western Australia in 1988.

The first vines in the region had only gone in the ground two decades earlier.

Like the region’s pioneer Tom Cullity, Warren was a doctor – an amateur enthusiast with no prior experience in the world of wine. And yet the couple – who live next to the vineyard and still own it – planted a near-perfect parcel of vines.

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Maintaining a rich legacy

‘They just nailed it,’ says Theo Truyts – he and his wife Clare Trythall are the current custodians of the 2.7ha site.

Although the Lilleymans received some guidance from Dr Mike Peterkin (who founded nearby Pierro winery and planted the first vines there in 1980), there seems to have been a lot of luck involved.

Perched on a gentle slope, with richer soils at the foot turning into poorer gravel-loam as you cross the vineyard, it sits at the northwestern edge of Wooditjup National Park, not far outside the town of Margaret River itself.

The vines, many of which are now more than 35 years old, are producing exceptional fruit – in particular Chardonnay (all GinGin, the most common clone in Margaret River, which produces berries of various sizes, lending particular concentration and complexity to wine), but also tiny parcels of Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc and Semillon.

Right place, right time

But the vineyard very nearly disappeared. For a decade, it was leased by Pierro, where Theo used to work, and he saw the quality of fruit the site produced year in, year out.

When he heard in May 2019 that Pierro was giving it up, the vineyard’s fate was uncertain.

The site is painstaking to farm, with the relatively tight 1m x 1.8m vine spacing (reflective of Peterkin’s approach at Pierro) meaning that everything has to be done by hand.

‘It’s just close enough that you can’t do anything with a machine,’ says Theo, laughing. And the age of the vines means the yields are low. Few find such a challenge economically appealing. Theo, however, did.

He firmly believed that it was an important part of Margaret River’s wine heritage that shouldn’t be lost.

Clare evidently knew what was coming (‘You were primed,’ she says, smiling as she recalls her husband’s predictability) and together they decided to take the plunge: they signed the lease, thereby securing the site’s future, and created Trait Wines with the 2019 vintage.

Hard graft

Born in South Africa, Theo has made wine around the world (his impressive CV includes names such as Yves Cuilleron in the northern Rhône, Hartford Family in California and Vasse Felix in Margaret River, alongside Pierro) and settled in Margaret River for good after meeting Clare, who’s British but was born in Japan and spent her early years in Asia, with parents in the shipping trade.

Theo still works full-time at Wildberry Springs, while Clare remains a doctor in emergency medicine – and then there’s the small matter of three young boys and Bertie, the adorably scruffy Labradoodle that completes the family.

Soon after they took the site on, the pandemic hit – not exactly easing them into the project. In late 2020, Theo, Clare and her sister Laura grafted 0.3ha of Sauvignon Blanc over to Chardonnay by hand.

Without the usual influx of labour at the subsequent harvest, Clare recruited medical students to come help pick, bussing them in from Busselton further north. Theo set to work nurturing the site and its soils, which are already showing a notable uptick in health.

The Trait approach is, in a word, ‘pragmatic’: working with what they can to make the most of the vineyard, which is almost entirely worked by hand.

They’re buying in additional parcels to make a little red and rosé, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache, so far, to complement the whites made from their own vines.

The winemaking is, Theo tells me, ‘supersimple’. Everything they do is about letting the site shine through – while also wanting to make sure that their wines can age.

Proudly independent

Trait doesn’t have its own winery – the wines are currently made at Aravina Estate in Yallingup.

Theo and Clare are not bankrolled by other ventures or outside investors; the funding here is all blood, sweat and tears. Pair all of that with a special vineyard and you have something rather extraordinary.

The way in which the duo talks about the vineyard and the winemaking reveals just how much they care about the project – and how much they’re pouring into it.

And the results are already exciting. They may only be producing 10,000 bottles a year in all, but the wines are rapidly earning a reputation in Australia – and soon, no doubt, beyond.

Trait Wines’ flagship Chardonnay:

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Surrounded by water on three sides, Mornington Peninsula is undeniably a maritime wine region. The cool coastal climate plays a significant role in the styles of wine produced here. But there’s more to Mornington than sandy beaches and sea breezes.

Located 70km south of Melbourne – about an hour’s drive away – Mornington is one of 21 wine regions in the state of Victoria, nestled in the southeastern corner of Australia. At 976ha, it’s not the largest, but it certainly overdelivers when it comes to wine quality, producing world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for 14 superb wines from Mornington Peninsula

‘Mornington is a very special part of Australia,’ says winemaker Martin Spedding, owner of Ten Minutes by Tractor. ‘It’s obviously right at the very bottom of mainland Australia. It’s got the Southern Ocean on one side: Bass Strait. It’s surrounded by water with Port Phillip Bay and the western port, so it has a very maritime climate,’ he adds.

‘For a very small region, it’s got an incredibly diverse landscape, and that difference in altitude, in aspect, the influence of the water bodies that sit around the peninsula, they really create an incredibly rich tapestry of terroir – which from a Pinot and Chardonnay perspective is fantastic.’

Cool customer

Three bodies of water border the Peninsula. Port Phillip Bay lies on the west side, Western Port Bay is on the east and Bass Strait lies at the bottom. With no vineyard in the area more than 7km away from the ocean and crisp coastal breezes blowing all year round, it’s no wonder that the climate is cool. Indeed, the mean temperature in January – the warmest month of the year – is just 19.3℃.

This comparative coolness means that disease pressure is low in the region. It also helps to create a long and balanced growing season for vines. The maritime influence means the risk of spring frost is also very low, so early-ripening varieties flourish in the mild summer and autumn, producing grapes packed with fruit flavour and with high natural acidity.

In addition, Mornington Peninsula lies at a relatively low latitude for viticulture (38° 35’S) meaning that light during the growing season is abundant and intense. As a result vineyards require careful canopy management and grapes tend to develop thicker skins, which affects the tannins and colour of the final wines.

Down to earth

The maritime climate is just one contributing factor to Mornington Peninsula’s unique terroir. Its geology and topography are also distinctive. The ridges and rolling hills of the peninsula were shaped by volcanic activity 60 million years ago and subsequent seismic shifts over the last 15 million years.

Growers in the region refer to sites being ‘up the hill’ or ‘down the hill’. Tim Perrin, chief winemaker at Kooyong and Port Philip Estate explains. ‘Elevation is not huge, but Red Hill is the hill we speak of, and Main Ridge. They’re the two grape-growing areas that we refer to as up the hill. Then everything else down back towards Melbourne is lower elevation, down the hill.’

Soil profiles change with elevation. ‘Soils up in Red Hill and Main Ridge are more red volcanic from extinct volcanos; they become more sort of sedimentary limes as we come back down the hill towards more northern parts of the peninsula,’ says Perrin.

Geologically, Mornington Peninsula’s ancient soils are very diverse. They range from yellow and brown soils over friable rock to well-drained clay soils; from volcanic red clay to deep, fertile sandy soils. This geological patchwork has been explored and mapped by the region’s growers, helping them to identify unique microsites – often within one single vineyard.

Early days

Although winemaking history in Mornington stretches as far back as the late 1800s, the story of wine production in the modern era took off in the 1970s. Most of the region’s oldest vines date to this time. ‘Some plantings even go back before that,’ says Spedding. ‘But in terms of the last century, you’re talking of the 1970s.’

‘If you look at current plantings that still exist, you’d look at the Myer family with Elgee Park,’ says Rollo Crittenden of Crittenden Estate. Mornington Peninsula’s oldest winery, Elgee Park was founded in 1972.

‘In the late 70s at Main Ridge Estate, Nat White was probably one of the first small commercial producers who had Pinot Noir,’ he adds.

Small is beautiful

Today Pinot Noir accounts for 49% of the region’s plantings, followed by Chardonnay at 27%. After those, Pinot Gris is the most widely planted grape (13%), with small amounts of other varieties including Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc (see At a glance box below).

In fact ‘small’ is the watchword for Mornington Peninsula. Thanks to that geological and topographical patchwork, the region has developed as a network of around 200 small-scale vineyards, most of which are family-run. These boutique producers are by their nature focused on attention to detail.

The result is a community of winemakers who have become increasingly committed to sustainable and regenerative viticulture, single-vineyard expression and low-intervention winemaking. Backed by solid technical know-how, they are pushing for pristine fruit quality to produce terroir-driven wines that require minimal handling in the winery.

In the glass

For wine lovers this pursuit translates into a range of Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays that can easily rival classic benchmark styles from Burgundy – but for a fraction of the price. Expressive and elegant, they show considered balance between minerality and fruit, all underpinned by that distinctive cool climate freshness.

Some can already claim to cult status; the best regularly appear on the winner’s podium at global wine competitions. Most recently Moorooduc Estate’s Robinson Chardonnay 2022 scooped a gold at Decanter World Wine Awards 2025.

As vines get older and understanding of individual sites deepens, these wines will only get better. Vertical tastings are already proving the long-term cellaring potential of top ageworthy expressions. Personally I can’t wait to see what lies over the horizon for this distinctive maritime region as it sails into the future.

Mornington Peninsula at a glance

Vineyard area: 976ha

Plantings: 59% red, 41% white

Grapes: Pinot Noir (49%), Chardonnay (27%), Pinot Gris (13%), Shiraz (4%), Sauvignon Blanc (2%), others, including Tempranillo and Gamay (5%)

Production: 1,863 tonnes annual crush in 2024

Climate: Maritime

Number of vineyards: 200

Number of wineries: 60

Source: Wine Australia Region Snapshot 2023-2024

Mornington Peninsula: 14 wines to try

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I’m of the opinion that perhaps the 100-point score is too freely given.

Frankly, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be on the delivering end of the triple-digit number in my role at Decanter. 

To me, the notion of perfection is difficult to fully capture, both in the process of doing something, such as making wine, and equally in evaluating it.

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‘My hope is that this allows us to talk about Willamette Valley Chardonnay the same way our Pinot Noir has been considered historically, that we can be viewed as a region that does more than one thing well’ – Ben Casteel

An A+ wine starts at 95 points, and there’s ample room to assess greatness between there and perfection. It can be akin to splitting hairs, sure, but that’s part of any wine critic’s role.

A perfect score, to me, means nothing is out of place, nothing is missing. I tend towards the old saying, ‘nobody’s perfect’.

Chardonnay on the rise

I cover Oregon (and Washington) for Decanter in addition to my responsibilities as North America editor, and over the past three years I’d given three 99-point scores – all to Oregon Pinot Noirs.

They were: an outstanding bottle from Abbott Claim, first place in Decanter’s Top 50 US Wines last year; most recently a Martin Woods Hyland Vineyard Pinot Noir; as well as a 2018 Pinot from White Rose Estate. All incredible wines – among the best I’ve ever tasted.

But Oregon’s Chardonnay has been gaining ground, both in terms of plantings (with acreage doubling since 2014) and critical acclaim.

In my past two vintage reports for Decanter I’ve rated Willamette Valley Chardonnay as high, or higher than the Pinot Noirs.

So my first 100-point wine, from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, is not a shock. It may surprise some that it was Chardonnay, but only if you haven’t been paying attention.

A family legacy

Bethel Heights has a long and storied history in the Willamette Valley, dating to 1978. The Casteel family, two brothers and their wives, founded the estate and have long been one of the flagship producers in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA.

Ben Casteel, a second-generation winemaker, took the reins from his late father Terry. He is very much a ‘winemaker’s winemaker’.

In a recent conversation with another accomplished producer in the region, they told me: ‘Sometimes people ask me who makes my favourite wines in the Valley, and Ben is at the top of my list.’ Confident and direct, and undoubtedly skilled. He is one of the top talents in the region, and he has been for some time.

The story of this bottle is wrapped up in the name, the old vines, the work that Ben’s parents, and his aunt and uncle did to establish both the Valley and the Eola-Amity Hills – that’s all a part of the beauty of this wine.

It’s a wine that speaks to that family’s legacy and importance. The challenges of the Wente clone early on and the sweet spot that it is clearly sitting in now – all of that background context.

It comes together to make what is, to me, a perfect bottle of Chardonnay. My first 100-point wine.

A brilliant bottle

The High Wire Chardonnay was my last wine to taste on this particular Friday afternoon. As I tasted it, it seemed like the complexity never stopped.

There are some truly exceptional Chardonnays being produced in Oregon right now, and many exhibit noticeable reduction, which I happen to love.

This wine, though, right out of the gate, had a clarity that some of those others don’t have in their youth. The complexity and nuance were allowed to shine.

Maybe it’s the Wente clone, but it’s clear Ben did a brilliant job layering fruit, minerality and savoury depth, and the texture stole the show. I haven’t tasted a better wine.

‘It feels like a fitting and bittersweet bookend for our Wente Chardonnay clone, planted in 1977 and soon to be replanted this fall,’ says Ben.

‘When my family purchased the property in 1978, these vines were just a year old – fragile sticks in the ground. Ripening them was a challenge every vintage, spanning my late father’s entire career and the first eight years of mine.

‘Over the years, they had every chance to replant with an earlier-ripening variety, but they chose patience. That patience is what brought us to this moment, 47 years later.’

Decanter’s first 100-point Oregon Chardonnay

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The 15th annual International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration (i4C+), a four-day event celebrating the wines of the host site, Ontario, as well as those from international regions, kicked off on 17 July 2025.

A consumer-focused agenda of wine tastings, food pairings and gala dinners, hosted by regional Chardonnay producers, included a one-day School of Cool featuring panels and seminars on the Thursday before the weekend’s festivities.

This year I was honoured to be invited to deliver the event’s keynote address and moderate the first panel.

The three panels discussed topics that ranged from the ageability of local Ontario-grown Chardonnay, the importance of Chardonnay in sparkling wines, and how Chardonnay appeals to modern consumers.

My keynote, which follows, was a meditation on the place that cool climate wines and wine regions will take in the future of the wine industry.

As the world evolves, I discussed the role that both a changing climate and demographic shifts play in positioning cool climate wines, as well as the connections to natural wines and the inevitable evolution that is much needed, yet still to come, in the wine ecosystem, particularly in the ‘New World’.

The notion of cool

Framing the conversation, we think of ‘cool’ and those on the fringe. We think of Miles Davis, indeed, we think of Joel Strummer, we think of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The Fonz didn’t wear letterman jackets; he wore leather.

Cool emerges somewhere from the dark corners and shines its brilliance on those in the mainstream. It doesn’t quite fit in, and frankly, it doesn’t want to.

Cool though, despite its lingering on the edge, is aspirational. I can’t remember what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I know I wanted to be cool.

A challenging climate

Climate is not just making cooler regions available to wine production, though it certainly is. Witness the rise of English wine, and the Puget Sound region of Washington, which is now seeing reliable success ripening Pinot Noir.

Perhaps more notably for this conversation, on the rise of ‘cool’. The fact is that producing balanced wines has become more challenging for regions that have a long history of doing so.

Picking dates are being pushed earlier and earlier, putting the phenolic ripeness of particular varieties into question.

Heat spikes during veraison, particularly in 2022, spelled disaster for some producers in Napa, where in a few cases wines were not made, and drove alcohol levels, even on the Sonoma Coast, up for Pinot Noir in particular.

In parts of California and Washington state, we see perennial overripeness. Wines from Washington’s Columbia Valley were 12 and 13% alcohol in the nascent days of the region. In Paso Robles, Tablas Creek makes wines in the 13% range. Yet, many wines from these warm regions push or eclipse 15% abv vintage after vintage.

In addition to rising temperatures, wildfires and drought are making wine-growing a challenge in places where it once felt like smooth sailing just a decade ago.

There is a mitigated impact for cool climate regions, but that doesn’t mean immunity. Erratic frosts and hail, as well as disease pressure, continue to pose challenges for wine-growers in the world’s cool spots.

The kids are alright

The rise of new wine drinkers presents an opportunity to re-centre cool climate wines.

Palates of younger generations and more diverse demographics of wine drinkers do not want 14.6% Chardonnay or Pinot Noir. They’re not impressed by the big, ripe, round wines of 15% abv with plenty of perfumed oak. They are looking for an edginess, taut fruit, crisp minerality and soaring acids.

Here I will propose something controversial.

There is a tremendous opportunity for cool climate producers to appeal to maturing wine drinkers who are coming over to fine wine, from their natural wine beginnings. Young people are finding the natural category appeals to them not just because of the buzzy packaging and farming ethos, but there is also something undeniably about the style of wines.

Say what you will about natural wine, it is a critical category – one of the few areas showing growth in the wine industry, a real bright spot.

If you drink natural wine, you see the markers.

Brightness of fruit, freshness, acidity – sometimes, it’s even volatile, but let’s be honest. You’re far more likely to have someone graduate from natural wine to cool climate wines than someone who gets into wine drinking Gnarly Head Zin. Overtly oaky and velveteen in the palate, wines do not translate to nuances of minerality and texture, and especially bright acidity, the way that many naturally made wines do.

When I’ve encountered fine dining programmes with a natural wine programme, their so-called ‘conventional wines’ tend to be from places like Pfalz, Alsace, Savoie, Burgundy and Oregon. There is a reason for this.

Cool climate wine regions should embrace and invite their natural winemaking sisters and brothers to the conversation. There is a synergy there.

As Pete Townshend sang, the kids are, in fact, alright.

The conservative nature of wine

In a time wrought with change, wine’s biggest Achilles’ heel may not be the ‘neo-prohibitionist’ movement or the tendency for younger wine drinkers to drink less; it may be its conservative approach.

Wine is ensconced in old châteaux and Michelin-starred fine dining; it has cultivated an air of exclusivity that has made it both attractive and unapproachable.

The wine world doesn’t adapt well to change.

Moving away from concentrated ripe wines from the established regions and producers requires the elevation of new palates. It requires a recognition that today’s young and aspiring wine drinkers aren’t looking for the same thing.

It’s not just on the media side.

Winemakers today are cranking out plenty of wines that top 15% alcohol; ‘letting it hang’ and ‘watering back’ are still de rigueur production methods in many parts of the winemaking world. It results in wines with cooked fruit flavours, opulent concentration and viscosity. Winemakers have been able to dial in precisely what they believe consumers or critics want, adding acid in an attempt to counter the ripeness overload they pursued in the vineyard.

The wine industry needs new critics, new voices.

Wine regions, particularly those making cool climate wines, should seek out, celebrate and platform up-and-coming writers and critics who recognise these wines for what they are.

Establishment critics are not going to change their tune overnight. The industry, as we now observe it, is still in recovery from the so-called Parkerisation of wine – extraction, oak and ripeness. Often monosyllabic wines. We’re still recovering from what has been a 40-year trend.

It’s anything but ‘cool’.

In closing…

The facts are that a changing world, along with shifting demographics and drinking habits, have the wine industry on its heels.

As the industry struggles to get its footing, my hope is that wine may find itself returning to its roots. It has always been in the ‘Old World’, a thing, albeit a fine thing, one that makes meals and time well spent with friends and loved ones that much better.

Wine can make life better.

The loneliness epidemic is real, and wine may be one of the cures. It’s not single-serving; it’s designed for sharing and if you’re sharing it with food, all the better.

The rise of Parker saw the US industry, in particular, evolve so that for many, the primary aim became achieving a good Parker score. I don’t blame him for this; it’s just what happened.

Trophies and works of human design are not the future of wine; instead, they will be wines that bring joy to conversations, convivial moments with friends, and meals with loved ones.

As my London colleagues might say, ‘Keep cool and carry on’.

The future of wine is yours.

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Is there any grape so simultaneously adored and abhorred by wine tribes than Chardonnay?

Some people will pay five-figure sums for a single bottle of white Burgundy, yet I’ve known others others feign an allergy to it in restaurants.

A friend of mine even has the acronym ‘ABC’ (Anything But Chardonnay) tattooed on her leg.

What gives?

Six of Rachel’s favourite Chardonnays included below

The actor and the fly

As a ‘neutral’ variety, Chardonnay is a veritable shape-shifter, capable of morphing into a multitude of guises.

It’s like an actor, taking on Shakespearean heroes (enigmatic aged Burgundy) or blockbuster leads (those highly polished types from Napa or Australia, all blond/blonde and bronzed with beautiful teeth).

But it just as easily does arthouse projects that go on to win Oscars (cultish grower Champagnes) or cosy readings that can never be repeated but stay with you for life (any number of small producers from around the world).

It can also blend into an ensemble. Its filmography is terrific.

And yet, everyone keeps banging on about that one time they appeared in Neighbours.

No offence to that television show (RIP) – I grew up watching it during the 1990s, just as opinion about those big, buttery Chardonnays from Down Under was starting to change – for the worse.

And here is the on-going irony, the black fly in Alanis Morisette’s glass.

Despite the years, there remain those who still base their prejudices on those vanilla-filled Aussie Chardonnays whose heyday was over two decades ago, despite its modern form being radically different.

But not me. I have embraced Chardonnay with a passion.

Chardonnay and me

I appreciate a further irony, that I am a single woman nearing 40 with a penchant for Chardonnay. But maybe Bridget Jones had the right idea all along.

In my 20s, I deliberately avoided Chardonnay given its reputation (and Bridget Jones, let’s be honest).

But, by believing all Chardonnay was fat and oaky, my wine options were rather limited when it came to choosing from cheap pub menus.

First there was Viognier, though it’s actually much ‘fatter’ than the naturally acidic Chardonnay.

I hadn’t yet discovered Chenin and am easily bored by Picpoul. I’m not a fan of the grassy, gooseberry wallop of a Sauvignon Blanc and, sometimes, am just not in the mood for the equally distinct Riesling.

Chardonnay feels calmer than aromatic varieties, yet there’s that added frisson of not quite knowing what you’re going to get.

Slowly, I began to realise that (definitely-maybe) I had misjudged it.

In my 30s, I entered the sommelier trade. Suddenly, the wonder of Burgundy was opened up to me and I discovered the veritable wine royalty whose DNA was distinctly, proudly… Chardonnay.

I tasted the most ethereal, pinpointed whites imaginable and learnt that a broad, rounded, oaky white didn’t have to be cloying – it could have oomph and presence without being a soap opera parody.

Chardonnay conveys the boisterous, satisfying opulence of vines grown in Chassagne-Montrachet just as faithfully as the slatey, mineral, rather earnest punch of Meursault; the taut austerity of Chablis in addition to the nectarous notes of Mâcon.

Burgundy’s crus helped me understand how human beings could distinguish wines from plots mere metres squared during blind tastings – a seemingly inexplicable talent before.

A fact of sommelier life, blind tastings force you to turn detective, with Chardonnay the most elusive (but fun) culprit.

It tests your geographical knowledge to catch what the base fruit is saying before deciphering what’s been done in the winery to mask or enhance that.

The why

If the mutually agreed goal of the world’s winemakers is to tell the story of their own, unique place on this earth through their wines, no grape will help you do that with such clarity, or obedience, as Chardonnay.

And the producers act as authors of these stories, imparting as much – or as little – of themselves on the final product as they see fit.

Flavour-wise, the grape dextrously echoes its origins. Cool-climate Chardonnays offer bright, lifted citrus notes whereas those from warmer climates veer towards fruits like pineapple or guava – still with bite, but getting more tropical.

Steering clear of wood will most help retain the pure flavours of what was picked but using oak during fermentation or maturation can add depth, texture and interest.

Just like ‘interesting’ people, however, oak can be a bit much if overdone.

New oak imparts stronger toasty flavours than previously-used barrels (like a teabag on its second or third steeping), and the trick of mass production is to throw in oak chips for quick hits of big flavour but with coarser results.

You can then choose to allow the zingy malic acids to convert into creamier lactic ones for a milkier, more unctuous quality – or not.

And there are other winemaking decisions about whole clusters, lees stirring, fining, filtering, sulphur, ageing – the list goes on.

It’s all a choice. Chardonnay is a double lesson in place and winemaking – nature and nurture.

Multiple options

Claiming to not like Chardonnay these days is like saying you hate a film you’ve never watched.

The only thing ‘ABC’ should stand for these days is Au Bon Climat, the late Jim Clendenen’s Santa Barbara estate producing sublime Californian Chardonnay.

Many are the producers reining in the excess, seeking instead more subtle oak usage, restrained fruit and a delicate touch.

You’ll find stunning examples in cooler New World regions including South Africa’s Hemel-en-Aarde, Australia’s Yarra Valley, Oregon in the USA, and the higher altitudes of Argentina.

Equally, staying in France you can find different personas over in the Jura (a stark, salty kick) or down south (florals and less acidity).

And don’t forget this is one of the triumvirate comprising most traditional-method sparkling wines, where a Blanc de Blancs Champagne will be 100% Chardonnay.

Your options are close to endless.

So while you could call Chardonnay a people-pleaser, I prefer to think of it as an empath: sensitive, powerful, complex, accommodating, considerate; capable of drama, humour, magnetism, candour, nuance and, sometimes, a bit of cheek.

Sounds like excellent company to me.

Some favourite Chardonnays

Moreau-Naudet, Chablis Grand Cru ‘Valmur’ 2022

Burgundy, France

Tanners, £84

Clean Chablis precision with an added thwack of mineral power, like a rod through its back.

Creation, Chardonnay 2022/2023

Hemel-en-Aarde, Walker Bay, South Africa

Majestic, £15.99

Clear Burgundian inspiration means unobtrusive oak, which rounds out the preserved lemon zing.

Kutch, ‘Trout Gulch Vineyard’ 2021

Santa Cruz Mountains, California, USA

Roberson, £61.70

Lifted sherbert acidity alongside delicate white floral notes will quash any clichés about Californian Chardonnays.

Bénédicte & Stéphane Tissot, Côtes de Jura ‘Sursis’ 2018

Jura, France

Lay & Wheeler, £67.40

Saline might in a glass, this savoury example boasts force, wit and wisdom.

Bodega Aleanna, ‘El Enemigo’ Chardonnay 2020

Mendoza, Argentina

Vinvm, £19.50

A full, peachy presence balanced by candied bitterness thanks to time under flor.

Jacques Selosse, V.O. Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs N.V.

Champagne, France

Millesima, £600

Robust and demanding of attention, enjoy rich, honeyed notes and serious style from a modern (grower) Champagne legend.

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Anniversaries seem to be arriving thick and fast at the renowned Hemel-en-Aarde producer, Hamilton Russell.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for Decanter on the 2021 release – current owner Anthony Hamilton Russell’s 40th vintage since he joined his father Tim Hamilton Russell at the estate.

Now, in 2025, the estate is celebrating 50 years since its creation in 1975.

Scroll down for notes and scores of Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir and Chardonnay

Cool climate

Hamilton Russell estate is situated in the lower part of the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, an area which today covers around 6,000 hectares (ha) with 388ha currently under vine.

Hemel-en-Aarde was established as a Wine of Origin (WO) in 2006 and is seen as the home of South Africa’s finest expression of cooler-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

The Hamilton Russell family have long been innovators and influencers, both within the Cape wine region and across many countries.

Tim, a Bordeaux lover, first planted vines in 1975 in a virtually unknown area close to Hermanus. Its relatively cool maritime climate, influenced by proximity to the cold, south Atlantic Ocean, rapidly indicated that the future lay with the classic Burgundian varieties of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

The first Pinot Noir vintage was 1981, and the first Chardonnay was vinified a year later in 1982.

A tasting of this first vintage in March 2022 revealed a delicate, fine Pinot with just 12% alcohol and ethereal notes of rose petal, red berry and delicate spice.

The purity of the wine showed how special this area is for production of Burgundian-style Pinot and Chardonnay.

Hamilton Russell Estate

Owners: Anthony and Olive Hamilton Russell

Grape source: Direct from owned, managed vineyards

Total vineyard area: Hamilton Russell Vineyards 52ha

Total estate area: Ashbourne 64ha, Southern Right 448ha

Number of wines: 9

Appellation/Wine of Origin: Hemel-en-Aarde Valley

Less ego

However, Anthony is adamant that imitation of the Côte d’Or has never been the objective; instead the family wanted their wines to be ‘a reflection of the vintage and the place’.

Asked whether the style has changed in recent years, he says: ‘Yes, in the early 2000s the wines were more full-on with more wood – and more malolactic characters in the Chardonnay.’

He believes they are now, ‘producing a wine with less “ego” and less wood influence – one that is searching for the most beautiful way to express the 52ha at the estate.’

Underlying terroir

Anthony highlights the difference in geology between the Lower Valley, that of the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde and the Ridge.

Based lower down, Hamilton Russell Estate has ‘the toughest soils with a very high clay content’.

Ironically, the clay content in Hemel-en-Aarde ranges from 35-55%, which is broadly similar to… the Côte d’Or.

When asked to compare the style of Hamilton Russell, Anthony says the estate wines are ‘less fruit-forward, they are more masculine, more structured, yet are more restrained’.

He notes that: ‘It’s the clay that makes the difference – rather than the temperature. If the underlying geology was sandstone here, this would not be a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay area.’

Signature style

On tasting the wines, it becomes clear that there is an unmistakable ‘thumbprint’ which identifies Hamilton Russell Estate.

There are clearly vintage variations but, with time in bottle, the terroir shines through.

Some vintages initially show more dark fruit, others are more aromatic, and there can be significant variations in alcohol – the 2020 and 2024 Pinot Noir were both under 13% alcohol.

Yet, the wines remain clearly Hamilton Russell wines.

Anthony says that with the estate Chardonnay he is, ‘searching for more than just fruit-expression’.

A growing proposition

Another significant change lies with the expansion of vineyards and wine cellars in Hemel-en-Aarde since Tim first planted vines in 1975.

Anthony notes that when he arrived at the estate in 1991, ‘Hamilton Russell was the only producer, now there are 28 winemakers and 13 wine cellars’.

He also proudly points out that ‘four ex-winemakers of ours are still living and working in the valley’.

It feels as though Anthony is very much the ‘godfather’ of this special place, and there is an undeniable spirit of respect, co-operation and a collegiate desire for the region to do well, among the many producers.

Strong future

Asked to predict how the estate will change in the future, Anthony believes that evolving vineyard and vinification practices will continue to be a key factor.

‘Today we use lighter oak toasting, we farm organically, we are not picking earlier yet the wines are lower in alcohol – this is mostly down to changes in viticulture,’ he notes.

‘We have the same clonal mix today (Dijon clones 113, 115, 667 and 777) but there is a much higher percentage of non-virused vines. We use less pumpovers, yet punchdown more. This gives us the equivalent of whole bunch without the risk of added phenolics.’

In conclusion, Anthony predicts a strong future both for the estate and Hemel-en-Aarde.

There remains a continuous process of self-challenge within the team – ‘How do you improve if you can’t find fault?’

Like the man in charge, Hamilton Russell Estate wines are not attention-seekers but they undoubtedly offer some of the finest, most individual, expressions of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay anywhere in the world.

Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir and Chardonnay

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The 2023 vintage dry white wine, made from grapes sourced in the Crouch Valley of South Essex, marks the first English wine release from Jackson Family Wines (JFW). The wine was crafted by head winemaker Charlie Holland, former CEO of Kentish estate Gusbourne.

Best known for its Kendall-Jackson label, California-based JFW operates over 40 wine estates worldwide, with projects spanning France, Italy, Australia, Chile, and South Africa, alongside its US holdings. Its English venture, initiated in 2023, is a relatively new addition to the family-owned company’s growing global portfolio.

With a strong heritage in coastal, cool-climate winemaking, the company has acquired 27 hectares (67 acres) of vineyard land near the North Sea. The Crouch Valley area, described by Holland as ‘one of the warmest and driest parts of England’, is increasingly recognised for its potential to produce high-quality still wines.

Half of the estate was planted in 2023, with the remainder completed this spring. The vineyard is currently planted to 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir, with the first harvest expected in October 2026.

While the estate’s own vineyards are still being established, the inaugural Marbury Chardonnay 2023 was produced using fruit sourced from two nearby Crouch Valley vineyards, one situated just a mile from JFW’s site. Both are managed by New Zealand-trained viticulturist Duncan McNeill.

The new release was whole-bunch pressed and barrel-fermented, then aged for 10 months in 15% new oak. The aim, said Holland, is to give a preview of what the local terroir has to offer.

In addition to enjoying relatively long hours of sunshine by English standards, the Crouch Valley’s defining features include low elevations (40 metres and below), strong maritime airflow, and the London clay soils. According to Holland, the heavy, silty clay retains water during dry spells and swells during wet periods, becoming effectively impermeable. This helps protect grapes from splitting during rainy harvests.

Winemaking for the first release was completed at Defined Wine, a contract winemaking facility based in Canterbury, said Holland, adding that there are also plans to build the estate’s own facilities in the future.

The Marbury name, the producer noted, derives from ‘Mare’ in Latin, meaning ‘sea’, and ‘Burh’, the old English word meaning ‘fortified place’.

A Marbury Pinot Noir is expected to join the still wine range next year, with multi-regional sparkling wines also in the pipeline under a separate brand name.

The Marbury Chardonnay 2023 will be released in mid-June, priced at £38, and distributed via St. Swithin’s Wine Shipper.

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In the rugged, windswept plains of Patagonia, where vineyards cling to the banks of the snaking Río Negro, an unlikely partnership has flourished.

Jean-Marc Roulot, a sixth-generation vigneron from Meursault in Burgundy, and Piero Incisa della Rocchetta, grandson of the visionary behind Tuscany’s legendary Sassicaia, came together in Argentina to craft world-class Chardonnay.

Their collaboration, rooted in friendship and a shared sense of adventure, blends centuries of tradition with a bold leap into the unknown.

Scroll down to see notes and scores of five exquisite Bodega Chacra Chardonnays

While their family legacies precede them – the mastery of Burgundy whites passed down to Jean-Marc and Piero’s inheritance of Tuscan innovation – this partnership brings a surprising twist: a commitment to making some of the world’s finest Chardonnay in the uncharted terroir of southern Argentina.

They make a compelling duo. Piero is an extrovert, brimming with Italian charisma and charm, while Jean-Marc is thoughtful and introspective, his responses shaped by decades of careful observation as a renowned stage and screen actor.

Yet, their differences complement one another, united by a shared hunger for discovery and an unwavering pursuit of perfection.

The story of how these two wine-world titans found themselves in Patagonia is as captivating as the wines themselves.

Forging a new friendship

Piero’s and Jean-Marc’s paths first crossed in the early 2000s. At the time, Piero was living in New York, immersed in its vibrant wine scene.

Having befriended many of the top sommeliers, he often joined them on buying trips to Burgundy. By then, Jean-Marc had already solidified his reputation as one of Burgundy’s most celebrated vignerons.

After taking over Domaine Roulot in 1989 following his father’s untimely death, he transformed it into one of Meursault’s most prestigious estates, renowned for its pure, expressive Chardonnays.

Unsurprisingly, Roulot’s wines were high on the wishlists of US sommeliers, and it wasn’t long before Piero and Jean-Marc formed a bond.

‘We became friends because of our shared family wine heritage and, of course, the common language,’ recalls Piero, a polyglot fluent in four languages.

While Jean-Marc was deeply rooted in Burgundy’s storied vineyards, Piero was forging a very different path. Eschewing the familiar comforts of Tuscany, he ventured to Patagonia, where he acquired an abandoned estate in the Río Negro valley.

It was a daring move, reviving old Pinot Noir vines in one of the world’s most remote winemaking regions – a gamble that didn’t go unnoticed by Jean-Marc.

‘When I tasted Piero’s Pinot Noir from Patagonia, I could see he was doing the opposite of what I expected from a Pinot Noir from South America,’ says Jean-Marc. ‘I trusted his focus from the start.’

See Amanda Barnes MW’s notes and scores for Bodega Chakra’s latest-release Pinot Noirs

A proposition

Their friendship took an unexpected turn over a wine-fuelled dinner with friends. When Piero casually mentioned his desire to produce Chardonnay at Chacra, Jean-Marc jokingly replied, ‘Why don’t you ask me?’

What began as a quip quickly became a serious proposition, spurred on by mutual friends encouraging them both to take the leap.

‘I wasn’t ready,’ Piero admits. ‘It was one thing having Jean-Marc visit Sassicaia, an already illustrious vineyard, but the idea of bringing someone of his calibre to Chacra was daunting. I felt an enormous responsibility. Were we good enough?’

Jean-Marc, on the other hand, was ready. Having already broken conventions in Burgundy, he was eager for a new challenge. Though deeply rooted in Meursault, he had begun to entertain the idea of making wine beyond his estate.

Offers from other regions, including Mâcon, had come his way, but none truly captured his imagination.

‘To make wine in Mâcon wasn’t an adventure – of course it would have been different, but it was too close to home. Patagonia, on the other hand, was something completely different. It was an adventure.’

By 2016, the project was underway. Chardonnay was grafted onto old Merlot rootstocks at the Mainqué estate and Jean-Marc officially joined the partnership. The following year, Bodega Chacra had its first vintage of Chardonnay.

On the edge of the world

The distance between Meursault and Mainqué spans 11,926km – and the two are worlds apart in winemaking realities.

Mainqué, nestled in the Río Negro valley, boasts a unique terroir of old vines and cool desert winds, offering an environment as untamed as it is promising for fine Chardonnay. But Patagonia’s isolation presents undeniable challenges.

‘In Beaune, you have everything you need at your fingertips,’ Jean-Marc notes. ‘In Mainqué, you have nothing – if the press breaks, the harvest stops.’

This reality became painfully clear during their first harvest together when the electricity cut out, bringing everything to a standstill. For Jean-Marc, who places meticulous importance on press techniques, it was nothing short of catastrophic.

‘He asked me when it was coming back. I said, “I have no idea, we just have to wait!”,’ Piero recalls with a nervous laugh. By the next harvest, Piero had a generator waiting for Jean-Marc’s arrival – a precaution that has since expanded to three generators on the estate.

Learning curve

It has been a learning curve for both winemakers, but one they’ve embraced as a journey of discovery, driven by their shared commitment to organic viticulture and a deep respect for the land.

‘Every year, we change something – brick by brick,’ Jean-Marc reflects, clearly relishing the challenge. ‘I think it takes at least 10 vintages to become comfortable. I couldn’t just copy and paste my Chardonnay programme from Burgundy, but with time, I have felt more confident with how to approach this terroir’s wines.’

Now, eight vintages in, the wines reflect Jean-Marc’s growing confidence in Patagonia, where he spends a month each year working closely with Piero and the team.

The Mainqué range offers vibrant, approachable wines with tangy salinity and verve, balanced with appealing, fresh fruit that makes them enjoyable now.

The Chacra line, on the other hand, is more complex, with powerful length and textural layers that hint at its ageing potential, teasing you for opening the bottle too soon.

The precision and purity already in the bottle are a remarkable testament to the evolving synergy between the winemakers.

A human adventure

For Piero, having Jean-Marc’s experienced palate at Chacra is invaluable. ‘The feedback he provides is irreplaceable,’ Piero says.

For Jean-Marc, Chacra has offered something equally profound – it has rekindled a connection to nature that he feels that Burgundy has lost. ‘In Chacra, nature is still working – you feel it,’ he says. ‘The light, the air, the animals. It’s a reminder of what we once had in Meursault. We need to learn to reconnect.’

The wines, too, reflect this special connection that both Jean-Marc and Piero feel with the rugged landscapes of Patagonia and with each other.

‘It’s rare to find a peer you can work with in this way,’ Piero reflects. ‘This partnership is about trust, friendship and laughter – a lot of laughter. It’s about the enrichment that comes from truly working together.’

Their unexpected partnership proves that great wine is not only a product of the land – it’s the result of shared dreams, respect and a touch of adventure. As Jean-Marc puts it, ‘It’s not just about the wine. It’s about the human adventure behind it.’

Patagonian partnership: The Chacra style in five Chardonnays

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The 2025 harvest is over in Margaret River, and while there’s still plenty of action in the winery, now’s the time of year when many new wines are released.

Margaret River’s two iconic varieties are Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, and the flagship releases are highly anticipated.

The quality of recent and upcoming new releases speak for themselves, and though many of these scores are high, they are well-earned.

Vintages range from 2021 to 2024, as there is no prescribed programme in the region for ageing and/or releasing wine.

The freedom enables diversity, economic considerations, and a wide berth of winemaking choices. Museum releases have not been considered in this line-up.

Scroll down for the notes on the latest releases from the icon wines of Margaret River

Regional overview: Wilyabrup

Wilyabrup is in the central area of Margaret River, and reaches from the coastline inland, flanked by Yallingup to the north and Wallcliffe to the south.

This is the heart of Cabernet country, and where many of the founding wineries of Margaret River are located.

Moss Wood

The first vines were planted at Moss Wood in 1969, making this the second-oldest estate in Margaret River.

The family-owned and run winery has been in the hands of Clare and Keith Mugford since the mid-1980s, with their sons, Tristan and Hugh, continuing the family legacy as winemakers and viticulturists.

The 2022 vintage was a warm and dry year. Keith says: ‘The warm season ensured consistent ripeness, so the wine displays the vineyard’s typically dark fruit aromas.

‘The palate certainly has the expected key feature of concentrated but balanced tannin, all enhanced by the prettier fragrances which we attribute to the cooler final weeks in March. Very few have been better.’

Woodlands Wines

Less than a kilometre south, Woodlands is another estate established early in Margaret River’s history.

First planted in 1973 by David and Heather Watson, the business has grown over time with additional plantings and vineyard acquisitions, but still crafts its iconic Cabernet Sauvignon from these original vines.

The family-owned winery is now in the hands of the next generation, sons Andrew and Stuart. The 2020 Margaret is the current release, and the warmer year shows substantially more approachability to the wine in its youth with invitingly plush fruit.

However, I predict the cooler characteristics of the new 2021 release will show their full potential with more time, as the fine backbone of structure is there.

Cullen Wines

Cullen Wines is another founding Margaret River winery. Winemaker, viticulturist and general manager, Vanya Cullen is the daughter of Wilyabrup agricultural pioneers Diana and Kevin Cullen.

The oldest vines (planted in 1971) are mature and dry-grown, and the winery has been one of Australia’s leaders in organic and biodynamic practices.

These new releases are some of the youngest, yet the wines have some of the longest lifespans amongst the region’s icons, retaining freshness and energy.

While 2023 was an outstanding year for Margaret River, the 2024 harvest was unprecedented with regards to timing – it was the earliest on record – heat, dryness and pace.

Vanya says: ‘The wines are looking great, in particular, the Chardonnay surprises because of its delicacy. The 2024 wines are all very fine, aromatic and fragrant; while all of the 2023s are incredibly textural.’

Vasse Felix

Dr Tom Cullity planted the first Vasse Felix vines in 1967, and the Cabernet Sauvignon-Malbec blend that bears his name is inspired by his vision and original plantings.

The cooler conditions in 2021 were challenging for some, but the best reds from the vintage are abundant in perfume and detail.

‘The 2021 has grown into itself, and suddenly it has a beautiful, silky succulence,’ explains chief winemaker Virginia Willcock, who has been at the helm since 2006.

‘It still has that lovely dry framework at the finish, but it’s almost like the tannins of the Malbec and the oak have brought the palate out and framed this beautiful plumpness, with length and depth,’ she adds.

The Heytesbury is the winery’s flagship Chardonnay, with the Single Site offering a site-specific expression.

Regional overview: Wallcliffe

A little further south, Wallcliffe is where the other main cluster of Margaret River’s most famed wineries is located.

Boodjidup Creek is a waterway that runs out to the Indian Ocean. Several top vineyards and wineries are centred around the creek.

Leeuwin Estate

Leeuwin Estate is one of Australia’s most accoladed wineries and is now three generations deep. The initial vines were planted in 1975 by Denis and Tricia Horgan, after consultation and mentorship from Napa’s Robert Mondavi.

The 1981 Art Series Chardonnay was highly recommended by Decanter in a blind tasting, an accolade that thrusted the winery onto the international stage.

The Chardonnay programme at Leeuwin has been in the spotlight for decades; however, increased attention and investment in the estate’s Art Series Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz production in recent years is starting to reap rewards.

Voyager Estate

Next door, Voyager Estate is certified organic, and its chief winemaker Tim Shand joined the ranks in 2022.

The MJW is named after the estate’s late patriarch, Michael Wright, with the 2021 vintage a testament to the organic and viticultural resources and careful fruit selection from the North Block and the Old Block.

The southern Wallcliffe vineyards can be risky for Cabernet in cooler vintages, as Shand explains. ‘There’s no hiding with Cabernet, and to me it comes back to viticulture,’ he says.

The 2021 vintage saw a long hang time for this fruit, and the result is clear. There’s plenty of oak here, but the fruit can handle it, and this has a long life ahead of it.

Stella Bella

Stuart Pym and Janice McDonald took over the Suckfizzle Vineyard – Margaret River’s most southerly vineyard – in 1996, establishing the Stella Bella label in 1999.

Stella Bella’s flagship wines have risen in recognition over recent years, and it would be remiss to bypass them as some of the most prominent iterations of the Margaret River’s iconic varieties.

The Luminosa, in particular, is a vineyard that produces wines of power and clarity, as seen in the 2023 reds.

McHenry Hohnen

The three single-site Chardonnays produced by McHenry Hohnen are unique and provide a fantastic opportunity to taste a few different subregional specifics.

The estate’s wines have evolved with the maturity of the vines, largely biodynamic vineyard management, and with winemaker Jacopo Dalli Cani at the helm for almost 10 years.

‘These Chardonnays are some of the best we have produced,’ he says.

‘In 2023, Mother Nature gave us a very nice gift. The fruit looked great, it had a lot of power, and the chemistry was right in check. The Chardonnays took the new oak and the solids well that year, turning into very complex, rich, but balanced wines.’

Margaret River icons: Latest releases

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When it comes down to it, good Chardonnay is a product of three factors: the distinctive nature of its terroir and farming, the vintage and, of course, the skill of the hands that produce it.

For Chardonnay in the US, the first point has been overlooked by critics who’ve long fixated on Napa and Sonoma as its leading producers.

Meanwhile, down the California coast, distinctive Chardonnay is produced in the idyllic coastal AVAs of Santa Barbara County, without the triple-digit price tag.

Scroll down to see notes and scores of 18 characterful Santa Barbara Chardonnays

Minerals galore

‘Coming down here to Santa Barbara was a renaissance for me,’ says Anthony Avila (pictured, below), the winemaker at Bien Nacido Estate. ‘These wines are naturally fresher, more vibrant and, frankly, more Burgundian in nature.’

This comparison has become a refrain among Santa Barbara winemakers – and for good reason. The region’s Chardonnay is distinct, standing apart even from high-quality examples elsewhere in California. The minerality found in the wines is a hallmark.

Predominantly sedimentary, Santa Barbara’s range of soils is complex, in parts including sandier soils towards the coastline in the west, gravels and flint, clay loam and shales, sandstones and even the rarer diatomaceous earth, made up of silica-based fossilised remains of tiny aquatic organisms.

This varied mineral composition results in localised and precise, structured qualities to the wines.

The Pacific ocean provides cool winds, protecting the grapes’ natural acidity through the provision of cool mist, often in the form of morning sea fogs that reach the far east of the county, evoking freshness and vibrancy in the wines.

Even amateur wine drinkers can begin to recognise the characteristics of Santa Barbara Chardonnay by this duality of cool climate and mineral-rich soil.

Local personality

This allure has encouraged smaller producers to put down roots. Paul Lato, who came in 1996 to intern at Au Bon Climat, describes Chardonnay as his canvas.

‘My inspiration comes from Burgundy,’ he says. ‘I use a lot of new oak but integrate it well – you won’t feel it. I want to make great California wines that stand alongside the world’s best.’

Sanford winemaker Trey Fletcher recalls tasting Santa Barbara Chardonnay in 2010 with then-sommelier Rajat Parr (who now works with Sashi Moorman making wines for Domaine de la Côte and Sandhi). ‘We tried wines from Chanin and Native9 and I was blown away,’ says Fletcher. ‘A year later, I moved here to make Chardonnay.’

Santa Barbara’s Chardonnay can rival that from the world’s most renowned appellations, yet winemakers here resist conforming to a standardised mould.

‘We’re always going to be just a local community that makes good wine,’ says Fletcher as he waves goodbye to Auggie Rodriguez, the winery’s cellar master, whose father helped plant the Sanford & Benedict vineyard (see ‘Cru Americana’ feature) in 1971.

This commitment to authenticity is part of what makes Santa Barbara Chardonnay so alluring. Winemakers here aren’t bound by tradition, but rather inspired by it.

See notes and scores of 18 brilliant Chardonnays from Santa Barbara

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Jason Millar, Andy Howard MW and Roger Jones tasted 128 wines, with 1 Exceptional, 10 Outstanding and 60 Highly recommended

South African Chardonnay: Panel tasting scores

128 wines tasted

Exceptional 1

Outstanding 10

Highly recommended 60

Recommended 47

Commended 10

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their latest-release South African Chardonnay wines, containing a minimum of 85% Chardonnay, at any price level

Scroll down to see the top-scoring wines from the South African Chardonnay panel tasting

As the scores and notes clearly demonstrate, this was a superb tasting of South Africa’s finest Chardonnays.

It showed beyond doubt that contemporary South Africa is home to some of the southern hemisphere’s most confident and assured examples of this variety – and perhaps the world’s.

Although Chenin Blanc is the Cape’s signature white variety, Chardonnay, planted in the right place and vinified sensitively, can be sensational.

Cool-climate regions – Elgin, Greyton, Hemel-en-Aarde and the brisker parts of Stellenbosch – triumphed decisively. Andy Howard MW found the wines ‘generally very good quality, stylish and consistent’.

Roger Jones felt that they stood toe-to-toe with Hawke’s Bay, Margaret River and all but the finest Burgundy. The best offered an irresistible combination of concentration, clarity and freshness.

Less is more

It was notable that so many of the tasting’s finest wines were made with minimal-intervention viticulture, with many following the principles of regenerative and sustainable farming, utilising unhurried wild yeast ferments and deploying new oak with tasteful restraint.

As a fan of richer Chardonnay, I found it encouraging to see many producers favouring an oak-inflected style that offers texture, flavour, depth and ageability. In terms of pricing, there was little of interest under £15; Cape Chenin Blanc offers much better value and character at that level.

Most of our top wines were around or above £50, putting them into justifiable competition with white Burgundy. Yet for the best relative value, the panel agreed that the £20-£30 range was particularly impressive.

This was where many of our strongest Highly Recommendeds (‘silver medal’ equivalent, 90-94 points) were awarded.

With more than half the wines in the tasting scoring 90pts or more, there’s no doubt South Africa is making world-class Chardonnay.

Lovers of the grape ought to be buying, cellaring and enjoying them for years to come.

See all recommendations from the tasting

What to eat with South African Chardonnay, by Fiona Beckett

Sometimes I wonder if people who dismiss Chardonnay have ever actually drunk it with a meal. It goes with so many things, from roast chicken to cheddar cheese, that it’s hard not to regard it as the ultimate food wine.

Given the quality, price and maturity of the South African wines in this tasting, though, it’s a great excuse to up your game in the kitchen and cook something that will show it off in all its glory.

Grilled lobster would be top of my list, with langoustines and scallops not far behind. A crab tart would be wonderful; a whole baked salmon with hollandaise sublime. In fact, any kind of eggy or creamy sauce would set it off to perfection, especially if imbued with a bit of Chardonnay-friendly tarragon.

Veg-wise, think of mushrooms, roasted cauliflower and fennel – any or all of them enhanced by pastry, butter or parmesan. And grilled corn is also a winner. You can absolutely drink high-class South African Chardonnay with a braii, especially a seafood-focused braii.

South African Chardonnay panel tasting results

Wines were tasted blind

The judges

Jason Millar is a freelance wine writer, consultant, judge and communicator with a focus on Italy and South Africa. He has a background in buying, importing and sales, and in 2016 was the top WSET Diploma graduate worldwide

Andy Howard MW is a Decanter contributing editor and DWWA Regional Chair. Formerly a long-serving retail wine buyer, he now runs his own consultancy, Vinetrades, focusing on wine education, judging, investment and sourcing

Roger Jones is the retired former owner of The Harrow at Little Bedwyn restaurant in Wiltshire. He is now a consultant and wine writer with a particular interest in the hospitality trade. He’s also a DWWA judge, with a focus on New World regions

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Ernst ‘Erni’ Loosen has officially launched his Perron de Mypont project in the heart of Burgundy, featuring regional bottlings plus village-level and premier cru wines from different parts of the Côte d’Or.

Loosen is best-known for producing outstanding Riesling wines, predominantly at Dr. Loosen estate in Germany’s Mosel valley, but he described the winemaking venture in Burgundy as a dream come true.

Perron de Mypont is based at the Vieux Château de Puligny-Montrachet, after Loosen acquired the east wing in 2019 and also created a négociant company.

He has been working with long-time partner Manoël Bouchet, as well as local growers in some of the Côte d’Or’s best-known areas.

Wines under the Perron de Mypont banner have been split into two segments, and the first releases will be available to consumers in the US in May 2025, said the partners.

A ‘Maison’ tier includes wines ‘sourced through the traditional Burgundy négociant system’ and features Bourgogne AOC Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the 2022 vintage.

An ‘Edition’ tier represents a ‘parcellaire’ approach. It focuses on specific vineyard sites, or ‘climats’, and partnerships with individual growers, who have matured the wines in their own cellars. 

‘I fell in love with Burgundy about 50 years ago, during a winemaking internship there,’ said Loosen, a previous recipient of Decanter’s Hall of Fame award. 

‘I was immediately struck by the similarities between Riesling and Pinot Noir, which are both cool-climate varieties that can make truly profound wines that develop beautifully with age.’ 

Initial ‘Edition’ releases will include a 2022-vintage Meursault and also a Meursault Premier Cru Perrières – a site sometimes described as Meursault’s unofficial grand cru.

There is also a 2022-vintage Volnay and 2023-vintage Gevrey-Chambertin, plus a 2019-vintage Vougeot Premier Cru and a 2022-vintage Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Les Suchots.

Production is relatively small, as is often the case in Burgundy.

Perron de Mypont produced 300 bottles of its Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Les Suchots 2022, and 600 bottles of the Gevrey-Chambertin 2023, according to technical sheets on the Loosen Bros USA website.

In the Maison division, a technical sheet said 1,000 12-bottle cases of Bourgogne AOC Chardonnay have been made in the 2022 vintage, from ‘selected vineyard parcels in in the classic Chardonnay areas of the Côte de Beaune, Côte Chalonnaise, and Chablis’. 

Loosen’s Perron de Mypont venture is one of several new or recently-expanded Burgundy wine projects to watch.

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For some wine lovers, white Burgundy is a mesmerising, astonishing wine, but it does present several challenges. For example, when is the best time to drink it?

Recently, I attempted to answer this question with a group of generous collectors.

Scroll down for notes and scores for 15 Montrachet wines from the 2014 vintage

Older or younger?

Some white Burgundy fans prefer to drink it very mature.

As a young salesman, I recall being dumbfounded when Luc Bouchard, export manager for Bouchard Père et Fils at the time, told me that among the 19th century Burgundy in his family’s cellar, ‘the whites are often better than the reds,’ a comment borne out when a generous client opened a bottle of 1890 Montrachet to demonstrate.

Others drink their white Burgundy young.

Among this cohort, some have yet to discover the joys of older whites, while others have had an unfortunate experience with bottles affected by premature oxidation (‘premox’).

To shed more light on this, my friends and I organised a tasting of 2014 Montrachet grand cru and its surrounding grands crus, one that provided great pleasure and abundant surprises. It is always important to taste with an open mind.

Once burned…

Some of our group initially found open-mindedness difficult…

Several had sold off much of their white Burgundy at auction because of fears of premox.

However – spoiler alert – we found no evidence of premox in any of the 15 wines we tasted.

There was a range of maturity among the bottles, but we were all gratefully surprised at the freshness and youth of these wines.

The uncanny freshness of the wines was only the first of the day’s surprises.

‘In general, the freshness of 2014 tempered the sometimes-extravagant richness of Montrachet’

2014: The growing season in retrospect

The weather leading up to the 2024 growing season was warm and wet, with little frost throughout the winter. These conditions continued into January and February.

The warmth remained through to June, but from March the rain stopped and dry conditions nearly turned to drought.

Bud break was roughly 10 days earlier than the norm.

The vines grew rapidly, flowering began at the end of May, and a large crop was set on the vines.

On 28 June, the Côte de Beaune was struck by a fierce hailstorm, wreaking extensive damage, with the worst-hit regions in the north of the Côte de Beaune from the hill of Corton to Volnay.

Damage was localised, however, and most of Chassagne and Puligny were largely spared.

Cool and rainy weather then set in throughout most of July and August.

This slowed the development of the Pinot Noir, but allowed the Chardonnay to retain lively acidity.

Conditions reverted in the last week of August to dry and warm with a cool north wind, which allowed the Chardonnay to finish ripening.

On average, the 2014 vintage produced grapes with more sugar than 2010 but with roughly the same levels of acidity, setting growers up for a magnificent white wine vintage.

So what’s the verdict?

The most striking conclusion is that premox was not a factor in this tasting. The most mature, or advanced, wine was the Domaine Pierre Morey Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru.

But the colour was holding well, and it had not yet developed notes of caramel or other hallmarks of oxidation.

Although some tasters initially expressed premox-based reservations about Domaine Michel Niellon, we tasted its Bâtard and its Chevalier and both were brilliantly fresh.

The second overwhelming conclusion is that 10 years was insufficient ageing time for almost all of these wines. Each wine presented its charms differently.

Although all were pleasant to drink now, most had much more to offer.

I had suggested the 2014 vintage as a theme because of its strong reputation, the 10-year anniversary, and the fact that there are still some wines available on the market.

Other strong white Burgundy vintages include 2010, 2008, 2007 and 2002, although these would have been more difficult to source for those who didn’t lay them down on release.

What to expect from the grands crus

Bâtard-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet

The strong malic acid content in this vintage was generally a boon for producers of Bâtard-Montrachet. Since it is lower on the slope and has heavier clay soils, this appellation often delivers wines that are more powerful than elegant.

In 2014, however, the balance brought by the cool summer made this an appellation to seek out.

Among the wines tasted on this occasion, only the Domaine Pierre Morey was from the Puligny side of the climat, where the domaine has had ‘0.48ha under a sharecropping agreement since the mid-1960s,’ says owner Anne Morey.

The rest were from the southern Chassagne portion of the climat. Domaine Paul Pernot’s Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet is admirably located, running the entire length of the slope between Domaine Leflaive and Domaine Faiveley.

Chevalier-Montrachet

Tasters often describe Chevalier-Montrachet as more lemony, mineral or chiselled than the other satellites. In a cooler year such as 2014, one might think the wines would be less generous, but this was not the case.

The word ‘mineral’ was often bandied about, but so was ‘tropical’, and the fruit did not escape us. The Chevalier Les Demoiselles plot from Louis Jadot is located in what was formerly premier cru Les Caillerets.

In 1913, négociant houses Louis Jadot and Louis Latour bought and split a parcel of Caillerets, and in 1939 these two parcels were promoted to grand cru status.

Before this promotion, the northernmost edge of Chevalier was called the Clos des Chevaliers, a monopole of Domaine Jean Chartron.

Although Chartron has sold off some of this vineyard to settle inheritance issues, it still owns a portion of it; the magnum in our tasting was a particular standout.

Owner Jean-Michel Chartron says: ‘2014 in my opinion is one of the best vintages of the decade, especially in white, and is among the most classic of recent vintages’.

The parcel belonging to Philippe Colin lies between the large plot of Leflaive and the Clos des Chevaliers. Domaine Michel Niellon’s Chevalier is from a plot at the base of the slope.

Bouchard Père et Fils is by far the largest owner of Chevalier-Montrachet, and although we tasted its ‘classic’ bottling (not La Cabotte, adjacent to Montrachet), it shone all the same.

Montrachet

In general, the freshness of 2014 tempered the sometimes-extravagant richness of Montrachet. We had a marvellous bottle from Bouchard Père et Fils, made from vines on the Puligny side.

We also had a very rare bottle from Lamy-Pillot, made, ‘from a small plot of 5.42 ares (0.0542ha) owned by Claudine Petitjean,’ says owner Florence Caillat, ‘we obtain one 228-litre barrel from this plot and give half of the 300 bottles back to Madame Petitjean, who sells them under her label’.

Louis Latour’s Montrachet is from a parcel they farm themselves but is owned by Domaine Boillereault de Chauvigny, itself owned by the Regnault de Beaucaron and Guillaume families.

We enjoyed the bottling from Louis Jadot, which reportedly sources wine from Baron Thénard (on the Chassagne side) but has also purchased from Boillereault de Chauvigny via Louis Latour.

2014 Montrachet grands crus

Wines are listed by grand cru then score

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Chardonnay can almost certainly lay claim to being the foremost white grape in the wine world.

The driving force behind white Burgundy and a key ingredient in Champagne, its fame as a grape and its capacity to thrive in all manner of environments has seen it spread across the globe.

Scroll down for 20 must-try Chardonnay

Unlike its parent, Pinot Noir, it’s an extraordinarily malleable grape, at home in both cool and warm climates.

Its character and profile changes accordingly too. In cooler regions it can be fine, mineral and nervy. In warmer climates, it becomes riper, fruit-filled and tropical.

It can also be worked in pretty much any way the winemaker wants, as its relatively neutral natural profile means it takes well to lees ageing, batonnage and oak regimes of all kinds.

And it’s an excellent base for sparkling wines as well.

Backlash and revival

Its global footprint, increasingly garish, mass-market iterations and a spate of premature oxidation in high-end white Burgundy led to a backlash against Chardonnay in the late 1980s through to the mid-2000s.

But, buoyed by a tide of smarter winemaking, it has bounced back stronger than ever before.

Fresh appreciation for white Burgundy, grower Champagne and beautifully-judged wines from Sonoma to Gisborne has put Chardonnay squarely back in the frame as a great white grape.

Let’s see where its key regions are today, along with a selection of wines that have grasped the attention of Decanter’s experts over the last 12 months.

Burgundy

Like Pinot Noir, Chardonnay’s home is eastern France. Here, from Chablis to the Mâconnais, Chardonnay really shows off what it can do.

The cooler north provides a great base wine for Crémant de Bourgogne and climate change is making the whites of the Grand Auxerrois a tempting value proposition.

But pure, mineral Chablis is the great draw here, thrilling diners and wine lovers for generations.

Head further south and you find the big guns of the Côte d’Or, Montrachet and Meursault, among the rarest and expensive white wines in the world.

And then the southern vineyards of the Mâconnais, another fine hunting ground for excellent value white Burgundy.

You can find out a lot more about recent white Burgundy releases in our recent vintage reports on Chablis 2023 and Burgundy 2023.

Champagne and other French fizz

The leading white grape in Champagne, Chardonnay provides the acidic backbone, fresh and floral notes and mineral filigree in blends. When used on its own, cuvées are known as ‘blanc de blancs’.

These are among the most-celebrated single-variety Champagnes, and many houses tout their prowess in being able to expertly pull-off the tricky balancing act that comes with working with one grape.

As such, many prestige cuvée blanc de blancs tend to showcase the house’s portfolio of vineyards and how it can draw on grand and premier cru sites to make a rare and luxurious cuvée.

Beyond Champagne, Chardonnay is also widely used to make Crémant throughout the country, not least in Burgundy (mentioned above) but also the Jura and (to a lesser extent) the Loire, where it is, again, often paired with Pinot Noir.

Australia

Chardonnay has carved out a particular home and character at the opposite end of the world to its homeland in Australia.

When the wave of New World wines came crashing over Europe in the late 80s/early 90s, Australian Chardonnay took the tastebuds of jaded British palates by storm.

Today, a more nuanced take on Chardonnay from regions such as Margaret River, Adelaide Hills, Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsular have gained wide acclaim.

And Chardonnay is put to increasingly good work in Tasmania’s sparkling wines as well.

New Zealand

Sauvignon Blanc may be New Zealand’s best-known grape, but there was a time when Chardonnay might have become its calling card.

As it is, Chardonnay is grown throughout the country and with superb results. Given the range of climates in New Zealand, there is great variety in the styles of wines that are produced.

Like an inverted Burgundy, wines can be leaner and nervier in the cooler south and more loquacious and ripe in the warmer north.

The refinement and quality of New Zealand Chardonnay is one of the great insider wine tips.

The US

Along with Australia, it is in the US that Chardonnay quickly cemented itself as the country’s foremost white grape.

Up and down the length of California and in the wilds of Oregon, Chardonnay thrives in the diversity of climates offered by the American west coast.

It was here in the US, especially in central and southern California, that Chardonnay really took on its golden aura of popcorn butteriness robed in oak.

But, as North American editor Clive Pursehouse argued last year, don’t fall for the caricature of US Chardonnay all being like this.

As in other countries, refinement, elegance and sense of place are much more in evidence these days, and from the Dundee Hills to Santa Ynez Valley, US Chardonnay positively hums with delicious energy.

Several were given pride of place among the Top 50 US wines tasted by Decanter last year.

Click here for over 10,000 Chardonnay references from the Decanter database

South Africa

The South African wine revolution of the last few decades has been a revelation for Chardonnay in the country.

Like it parent, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay has found the southern part of the Cape, around Elgin and Walker Bay very much to its liking, and the beautiful balance of ripeness and freshness makes them lip-smacking treats.

Look to Hemel-en-Aarde for some truly standout examples.

Around the world

Chardonnay is very much a global grape. Due to its close relationship to Pinot Noir you can generally be assured that where’s one the other won’t be far behind.

In Europe, one place you might not expect it is Italy. Its chief role here is in the sparkling wines of Franciacorta and Trentodoc.

That said, there are some notable proponents of still Chardonnay elsewhere in the country including Antinori, Gaja and Löwengang.

In England, Chardonnay has once again spearheaded the charge in sparkling wines but ambitious projects such as Chapel Down’s Kit’s Coty have seen it become a real contender in English still wines as well.

Finally, there’s Chile and Argentina. With its huge climatic diversity, in high altitudes, by the sea and in the dry extremes of the Atacama Desert, Chile has been producing some truly excellent Chardonnay in recent years that really play to the grape’s strengths.

That said, the quality of Chardonnay in Argentina is not to be sniffed at by any means and remains hugely under-appreciated.

If you really wanted to wow a jaded wine lover in your life, a good Argentine Chardonnay could be the move…

Decanter Cellar: 20 must-try Chardonnay:

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French sparkling wines designated as Crémant are produced using the traditional method as practised in Champagne, involving a second fermentation in the bottle, and Crémant de Bourgogne is the leading example in this important sector.

Across France, more than 100 million bottles of Crémant are produced each year, in eight regions: Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Die (in the Rhône), Jura, Limoux, Loire and Savoie.

Crémant de Bourgogne is the closest in style to Champagne, mainly due to the use of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir as the key varieties (although Aligoté plays a significant role in many blends).

Scroll down for 10 top Crémant de Bourgogne

Appellation rules also permit the use of Gamay (up to a maximum of 20%) as well as Melon and Sacy, although the last two are rarely encountered.

Crémant de Bourgogne is produced over a vast geographical area, ranging from the Yonne department in the north, through the Côte d’Or, Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais to Beaujolais in the south.

Annual production in 2023, according to the national growers’ and producers’ association, was nearly 33.9m bottles, with 46% exported.

Latitude plays a role in determining style, with the wines produced further south having a slightly riper, softer feel to them.

The Crémants from Grand Auxerrois, around Chablis, are grown in similar conditions of climate and geological structure to those of the Aube region in Champagne, not surprisingly resulting in wines with freshness and mineral characters to the fore.

Estates pushing quality

Achieving appellation status in 1975, Crémant de Bourgogne has long been dominated by important (and high-quality) cooperative wineries such as those in Prissé, Lugny and Viré in Burgundy’s south.

Further north, in the Grand Auxerrois, the driving force has been Caves Bailly Lapierre, based in underground cellars that historically were a quarry that supplied stone for the Pantheon in Paris, as well as providing secure housing for German Messerschmitt fighter aircraft during World War II.

Although these larger producers make good- quality sparkling wines, it could be argued that some Crémant de Bourgogne lacks the individuality and excitement of the best Champagne.

In recent years, more estate Crémants (often vintage-specific) have been produced and these are undoubtedly raising the bar.

Look out for wines from Clotilde Davenne in the Auxerrois, Domaine Stéphane Aladame and Famille Vincent (Château Fuissé) in the Chalonnaise/Mâconnais, and Domaine Jean-Noël

Gagnard in the Côte d’Or.

Today, Crémant de Bourgogne is an exciting category with a lot of change taking place, making this a great time to explore the wines.

Andy’s top 10 Crémant de Bourgogne picks

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German winemakers planted more grape varieties usually associated with Europe’s more southern regions in 2024, replacing local vines with Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot as growers adapt their vineyards to a warming climate.

Wine producers in Germany increased the cultivation of Chardonnay grapes typically associated with Burgundy by 138 hectares (ha), the German Wine Institute (DWI) reported on Tuesday, citing data from statistics office Destatis. At the same time, growers reduced the area for early-ripening Müller-Thurgau.

As climate change brings warmer growing seasons, German winemakers are increasingly planting French grapes that in the past wouldn’t reliably ripen in their vineyards, as well as new varieties bred to resist fungal diseases that thrive in warm and humid conditions. Average annual temperatures in Germany have risen around 2°C since the 1970s, according to climate data compiled by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.

The total area in Germany with Chardonnay vines rose 4.7% last year to 3,050ha (Destatis). That’s nearly double the figure from a decade ago. Sauvignon Blanc has been another popular white wine variety among German winemakers, with the growing area more than doubling in the past decade to 2,054ha in 2024.

Meanwhile, growers have been ripping up plots planted with Müller-Thurgau, once Germany’s most common white wine variety ahead of Riesling. The area of Müller-Thurgau fell 2.1% last year to 10,511ha, less than half the surface planted with the variety in the mid-1990s. That’s as the overall area producing whites was little changed year-on-year at 71,423ha.

Among red wine grapes, Merlot bucked a trend for falling production area, with the growing area increasing 3.2% last year to 96ha Meanwhile, the overall surface producing red wines fell 1.4% to 31,872ha as German winemakers adapt to consumer demand shifting to white wine.

‘The increases in the new robust grape varieties and in the southern varieties in the red wine sector show that German winegrowers are increasingly adapting to the challenges of climate change,’ DWI MD Monika Reule said.

Germany is Europe’s fourth-biggest wine producer behind Italy, France and Spain. German wine production fell 9.8% to 7.75 million hectoliters in 2024, the third-lowest volume in 15 years, according to Destatis. The statistics office blamed spring rains and mildew as well as extreme weather including late frosts and hail storms for the drop in production.

The overall vineyard area in Germany fell 0.4% in 2024 to 103,295ha due to the decline in reds. White wine grapes accounted for 69% of the total surface, a share that’s been creeping up year after year since 2006, when whites accounted for 63% of the wine-grape area.

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Chateau Montelena put Californian Chardonnay on the map when it secured a shock victory at the 1976 Judgement of Paris.

The winery’s 1973 Chardonnay earned the highest overall grade in that blind tasting, finishing ahead of the finest Meursault and Puligny Montrachet.

Chateau Montelena has gone from strength to strength in the ensuing years, but it now has one eye on the future.

‘We’re not just making wine for today, we’re building a future where Chateau Montelena remains a beacon of quality and longevity for American wine,’ said CEO Bo Barrett

‘This new vineyard is a testament to our belief that the best is yet to come. We’ve always aimed to push boundaries, to show the world what American wine can be, and this step ensures that legacy thrives for generations.’

Chateau Montelena is based in the Calistoga AVA. Entrepreneur Alfred L. Tubbs established the estate on a 103ha plot at the foot of Mount Saint Helena back in 1882, and the Barrett family has owned the company since the 1970s.

The new vineyard is located approximately three miles from Montelena’s current chardonnay vineyard in Oak Knoll.”

It is ideally suited to growing Chardonnay, according to Chateau Montelena, as it features well-drained loam, red volcanic soils and optimal growing conditions.

The Carneros AVA is split between Napa County and Sonoma County. It is located at the southern edge of both counties, and it is renowned for having a cooler climate than most other parts of those counties.

That makes Carneros ideal for growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and many of the region’s grapes are used to make sparkling wine.

Chateau Montelena plans to begin planting the new vineyard next year. The company said the acquisition ‘secures the foundation for the next era of its legendary Chardonnay’.

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Looking for value in Burgundy? There’s no doubt, it’s a challenge.

‘In the grand scheme of the world of wines, value is pretty much nonexistent from Burgundy at this point,’ says Jonathan Eichholz MS, co-owner of New York City restaurant pop-up Aftergold and educator at GuildSomm International.

Indeed, a decade ago, stellar expressions of Burgundy’s top sites and winemakers could be found in the $30-$50 (£30-£38) range from US merchants.

Today, says Eichholz, prices for quality Burgundy begin at $60-$80, a reflection of both skyrocketing demand and scarcity.

Nonetheless, you can still find relative value in Burgundy. Lesser-known villages in the shadow of the Côte d’Or’s star appellations still offer reasonably priced wines, particularly in the outer fringes, where the warming climate has widened the margins for fine winemaking.

The region’s historic négociant networks and large domaines provide opportunities to find value, too.

And according to Arnaud Tronche, director of Paris wine store and restaurant Legrand Filles et Fils, a new wave of boutique producers and micro-négociants also offer potential contenders.

Here are 10 tips for discovering the value that still exists in Burgundy today.

1: Head for the heights

The warming climate has made thrillingly mineral, fresh-fruited wines a hallmark of the higher-altitude Hautes-Côtes de Beaune and Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, appellations that extend to the west above the Côte d’Or.

An influx of prominent producers such as Méo-Camuzet, Olivier Leflaive and Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair gained early attention.

Since then, young independent wine-growers and micro-négociants such as Chanterêves, Maison A&S and Marthe Henry Boillot, drawn here by the affordable, distinctive terroir, have brought new energy to this evolving region, says Tronche.

2: Hone in on Chablis and Grand Auxerrois

‘Barring famous names like Dauvissat and Raveneau, Chablis remains quite affordable,’ says Eichholz. Indeed, excellent premier cru Chablis can still be found for less than a basic Bourgogne from top producers.

Outside Chablis, climate change has elevated wines from the Grand Auxerrois (for more detail, see our recent feature on the Grand Auxerrois), particularly village appellations such as Irancy for Pinot Noir or Vézelay for Chardonnay.

Regional bottlings of Coteaux Bourguignons, Bourgogne Chitry and Bourgogne Tonnerre offer further value. Eichholz highlights Domaine Louis Michel & Fils for classically steely Chablis, or William Fèvre for a richer style, while properties such as Domaine Alice et Olivier De Moor represent ‘an exciting new school of Chablis’, he says.

In the Kimmeridgian limestone soils of Irancy, producers such as Gabin and Félix Richoux, and Christophe Ferrari at Domaine St Germain are standouts. In Vézelay, Domaine de la Cadette excels.

3: Delve into the fringes of the Côte de Nuits

Marsannay and Fixin, the northernmost villages of the Côte d’Or, along with the Côte de Nuits Villages, a regional appellation that encompasses the southern and northern edges of the Côte de Nuits, offer rare value within this otherwise pricey part of Burgundy.

Marsannay, still without any premier cru vineyards despite long-promised promotions, remains a great source of value.

Just north of Gevrey-Chambertin, Fixin boasts not only a similar geology but also a structured, focused style reminiscent of its more famous neighbour (see our ‘Burgundy’s underrated premiers crus’ feature).

Sylvain Pataille, renowned for his Marsannay, whether red, white or rosé, is a top pick for Eichholz, along with Bruno Clair, who has deep roots in Marsannay, too.

In Fixin, Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet is a standout, along with Domaine Denis Mortet and Méo-Camuzet for excellent entry-level wines throughout Marsannay and Fixin. Look out for Côte de Nuits Villages bottlings from Didier Fornerol and Camille Thiriet.

Tronche’s tips #1

Bypass the huge markups that have inflated prices in foreign markets by buying and enjoying Burgundy in France.

4: Look beyond Volnay and Meursault

Similarly overlooked, due to the star power of neighbouring Volnay and Meursault, are Monthélie, Auxey-Duresses and St-Romain, a trio of villages that extend to the west of Meursault in the Côte de Beaune.

Monthélie (bordering both Volnay and Meursault) is best known for Pinot Noir with a floral, supple character reminiscent of Volnay. Auxey-Duresses produces both white and red wines that echo Volnay and Meursault, but are leaner and nervier in style.

Here, too, particularly for the higher-elevation St-Romain, the warming climate has allowed for reliably riper wines.

Standout producers include Douhairet-Porcheret in Monthélie, Domaine Lafouge Jean & Gilles in Auxey-Duresses and Domaine Henri & Gilles Buisson in St-Romain.

5: Uncover villages in Corton’s shadow

Off the beaten path in the shadow of the grand hill of Corton, the villages of Savigny-lès-Beauneand and Pernand-Vergelesses offer rare value in the heartland of the Côte d’Or.

In cooler times, these neighbouring appellations were known for rustic, often unripe wines.

Today’s warmer climate and the influence of some of Burgundy’s most dynamic wine producers – including Simon Bize, Chanterêves and Domaines Jean-Marc & Hugues Pavelot, Chandon de Briailles and Guilbert-Gillet (Tronche’s pick, particularly for masterful Aligoté) – have flushed the regions with wines of increasing finesse and pleasure.

6: The secret’s out on St-Aubin

St-Aubin, tucked away behind Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet, was once a hidden gem for fans of white Burgundy seeking top-tier quality without top-tier pricing.

At its best, St-Aubin delivers wines of stony intensity and opulence that rival those of its more famous neighbours.

But St-Aubin hasn’t been a secret for well over a decade now and prices for star producers such as Marc Colin, as well as his sons Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey and Joseph Colin, have soared.

Jacques Bavard and Domaine de Montille offer more approachably priced options.

7: Chalonnaise

With no grand cru appellations, the Côte Chalonnaise, just south of the Côte de Beaune, was known historically for easy-drinking, fruity wines.

But quality has surged in recent decades, particularly in the prime villages of Bouzeron, Mercurey, Givry and Montagny, which share the limestone soils of the Côte d’Or.

Mercurey and Givry in particular offer perfumed, seductively spiced Pinot Noir with longevity that can rival that of better-known appellations.

For Chardonnay, Montagny offers accessible options for premier cru bottlings. Bouzeron is the only village in Burgundy devoted to the Aligoté grape.

Domaine de Villaine, based in Bouzeron, is a star of the region, but producers such as Camille Giroud, Olivier Leflaive and Faiveley offer consistent value.

Domaines Feuillat-Juillot and Berthenet are noteworthy in Montagny, as is Domaine du Cellier aux Moines in Givry.

Tronche’s Tips #2

Generic Bourgogne bottlings, typically blends sourced from across the region, can provide accessible introductions to a producer’s or négociant’s house style.

Look to classic domaine producers such as Lafarge or négociants such as Bouchard Père & Fils, Maison Joseph Drouhin or Louis Jadot for honest expressions of unique terroir at fair prices, or seek out small producers from lesser-known and emerging regions, and micro-négociants such as Antoine Lepetit de la Bigne and Les Horées.

8: Mâconnais

‘The search for inexpensive white Burgundy is an endless game of Whac-a-Mole,’ says Eichholz. ‘Discover an unknown village or producer and prices skyrocket the next day.’

Amid this struggle, the Mâconnais, the southern gateway to Burgundy, has become a bastion for terroir-focused value alternatives to Meursault or Chassagne.

Indeed, its exceptional terroir has made the Mâcon one of Burgundy’s most dynamic regions, attracting renowned producers such as Puligny-Montrachet’s Domaine Leflaive.

Eichholz points to the Bret Brothers/La Soufrandière as a source for extraordinary bang for your buck.

9: Explore the southern fringe of the Côte d’Or

Santenay, at the southernmost edge of the Côte de Beaune, was historically a source for easy-drinking but rustic wines, typically blended into inexpensive Bourgogne.

But the appellation can produce lavish, perfumed Pinot Noir of substance and charm – especially from its 12 premiers crus – that still delivers excellent value.

Notable producers abound in Santenay, including Caroline Morey, David Moreau and Domaine Bachelet-Monnot.

Meanwhile, Bachelet-Monnot and Tronche’s pick, newcomer Domaine de Cassiopée, are among the many young, innovative wine producers who’ve made Maranges, a little west of Santenay, a recent hotbed.

10: Outside the box: Aligoté and Passetoutgrain

Far more than a forgotten cousin, Aligoté is ‘an open, aromatic grape with distinct varietal character – a more extroverted version of Chardonnay’, Eichholz says.

While still a relative bargain, it’s increasingly prominent across Burgundy. Standouts include Sylvain Pataille’s single-vineyard expressions from Marsannay and Ramonet’s Bouzeron.

A more approachable option, however, is Michel Lafarge’s Bourgogne Aligoté Raisins Dorés.

For juicy, uncomplicated reds, the regional Bourgogne Passetoutgrain appellation, with its blends of Pinot Noir and Gamay, often co-planted and co-fermented, can be delightful.

‘Emmanuel Rouget is an especially fancy producer who makes the best Passetoutgrain in all of Burgundy,’ says Eichholz, but producers such as Lafarge, Domaine Robert Chevillon and Domaine Marquis d’Angerville make consistent, more-affordable examples, too.

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