Good value, good wines dominate Down Under chardonnay tasting

In the 1990s, California wine makers believed American tastes for chardonnay required great, big white wines, full of oak, butterscotch, fruit and creaminess that traditional chardonnay drinkers considered excessive or "over the top."

The California style differed greatly from the French wines, which were more mineral in aroma and depended less on fruit and oaking and more on balance.

Now, a new competing segment among chardonnays is making a name for itself: chardonnays from Down Under -- New Zealand and Australia -- that have not been aged in oak barrels.

The oak barrels give the vanilla, butter, butterscotch and oak tastes we commonly found in the '90s California chardonnays. But down under, wine makers are working with stainless steel barrels that produce an entirely different style.

Of course, there are exceptions, but most often, down-under chardonnays are more crisp, more citrus-flavored and less woody tasting than their California counterparts.

I asked the wine-tasting group to compare five chardonnays from down under that have touched no oak in their history. Here is what we found:

-- 2002 Yalumba Unwooded Chardonnay at $9.99. This wine had a very lively nose with lots of clean fruit. In the mouth, it was dry but had a creamy texture. Tasters found this wine to be "gorgeous," with the primary flaw being a short finish. After wines were unwrapped from the blind tasting and they learned the price, tasters declared this wine a great value.

-- 2001 Nepenthe Zoe's Chardonnay at $14.99. This wine had an aroma of apple juice, apricots and a bit of must. In the mouth, it was juicy, making our mouths water. Green apples and good acids made this a better competitor for our experts, compared to the Yalumba -- except for the price.

-- 2001 Trevor Jones Virgin Chardonnay at $19.99. This wine had a completely different aroma from the first two. The tropical fruit, especially pineapple, clearly dominated. On the palate, it was a viscous, thick, creamy mouthful. It had a bigger body than the others, with tastes of canned pineapples. It had a long finish. This wine finished second in our tasting.

-- 2001 Alpha Domus Chardonnay at $13.99. This wine was full of tropical aromas, especially pineapples and passion fruit. It was very tart on the finish, with tastes of citrus rinds.

-- 2002 Kim Crawford Unoaked Chardonnay at $19.99. The first thing you have to get past with this wine is the screw cap. Yes, a screw cap. You should not make any assumptions about this extraordinary wine because of the screw cap, however. Cork quality has become an increasing problem for wine makers, and Kim Crawford has taken the courageous stance to seal a $20 bottle of wine with a screw cap. The screw cap has not affected the quality. Tasters ranked the Kim Crawford the best among the unoaked chardonnays. It had a very pretty aroma, full of pear, citrus and sweet fruit. The acids were good and the finish was long.

After the tasting, the panel concluded that this was a great flight of wines. The question was which wine presented the best value.

We debated whether we would prefer to buy two bottles of the Yalumba or one bottle of the Kim Crawford. The Kim Crawford was clearly the best wine, but was it twice as good as the Yalumba?

That is one of the reasons wine tastings are fun. You decide which you would rather drink, or which you can afford.

Questions can be sent to Frank Sutherland, editor, The Tennessean, 1100 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203 or e-mailed to editor