A Grape With No Signature

Chardonnay's distinguishing feature is that it does not have one.

Sauvignon blanc announces itself before you have finished pouring. Riesling, gewürztraminer and muscat are recognisable to a beginner within seconds. Chardonnay has a modest aromatic signature of its own (apple, citrus, something faintly nutty) and very little that overrides where it grew and what was done to it.

This is why it is Burgundy's white grape, and why it became the most planted white variety on earth. A neutral vehicle transmits the site. It also transmits the winemaking, which is how chardonnay acquired a terrible reputation in the 2000s from wines that tasted entirely of the cellar.

Three decisions shape white Burgundy, and understanding them explains most of what you taste.

Malolactic conversion is the first. Bacteria convert malic acid, the sharp acid of a green apple, into lactic acid, which is softer. Total acidity falls, the texture rounds out, and the process can produce diacetyl, which smells of butter. In Burgundy it happens routinely and is generally allowed to complete, which is a substantial part of why white Burgundy tastes different from an Australian chardonnay where it may be deliberately blocked. In a warm vintage with low acidity, a grower may prevent it to keep the wine fresh, which is a decision that would have been unnecessary thirty years ago.

Bâtonnage is the second: stirring the dead yeast cells suspended in the barrel. The lees release mannoproteins that add weight and a creamy texture, and they consume oxygen, which protects the wine. Fashion has swung hard on this. Heavy stirring was standard in the 1990s and is now used far more sparingly, partly because it makes wines broad and short-lived and partly because minimising oxygen exposure became urgent after the premature oxidation crisis.

Oak is the third and the most misunderstood. New oak is a seasoning and a preservative rather than a mark of rank, and the best producers generally use less of it than their reputations imply: 20 to 30% new for a premier cru is common, with grand cru barrels chosen for grain and cooper as much as toast. A wine that tastes primarily of oak is a wine whose fruit could not carry it. Chablis, the region's other great chardonnay, is frequently made in stainless steel with none at all.

Put all three at maximum on modest fruit and you get the style that made chardonnay unfashionable: butter, toast, vanilla, and very little else. The diagnosis matters because it is a cellar outcome rather than a vineyard one, and the same parcel handled with restraint tastes completely different.

Which brings us to the comparison every taster is taught, and to how far it can be trusted.

Meursault is broad, nutty and generous; Puligny-Montrachet is taut, precise and mineral. Chassagne sits between them. The generalisation holds often enough to be useful and hides enormous variation.

The soil explanation offered is that Puligny sits on thinner, stonier ground. The constraint growers mention more often is the water table, which in Puligny is high enough that cellars cannot be dug deep: a practical fact about where the wine is raised rather than where it grew.

And a Meursault from a lean site made by a producer who dislikes richness will read as taut, while a rich Puligny from a warm vintage will read as broad. The commune tells you a tendency. The producer tells you considerably more, which is the general lesson of this entire subject arriving again in a different form.