I am rather happy to have allowed myself to relax my selection rules. It makes this game of exploration so much easier and less of an albatross. The One thinks I can be stubborn and, if she was right, that would mean I would spend too long each week tracking down and selecting wines according to criteria that only I care about. Oh, hang on.....
Week D (2015) Dark Horse Chardonnay, California. 2013. Tesco £9
I have commented before on the misguided souls who, for inexplicable reasons, like to say that they enjoy anything but Chardonnay when drinking white wine.
White wine comes in a huge variety of styles, from sharp, acidic wines, though aromatic and floral, to fat and creamy. Almost all of them can be made from Chardonnay depending on where it is grown and the prevailing climate.
This one comes from the warm west coast of America where the fruit has plenty of sunshine to allow it to ripen fully and develop soft stone fruit and tropical flavours. There's plenty of sugar in those ripe grapes and so the alcohol reaches 13.5% before, but not at the expense of reduced acidity that would render the result 'flabby'.
The back label describes the wine as tasting of baked apples and pears and being layered with toasted oak notes of caramel and brown spice. I sometimes think the writers of tasting notes have indulged in a game of bullshit bingo, simply picking plausible words, and less plausible word combinations, from a brown paper bag and having a good laugh at the output. On this occasion I think they have actually tasted the contents of the bottle, although I may have added peaches and pineapple, as I claimed earlier.
I really liked this one and at the price think it is worth a small bulk purchase. It is smooth, easy to enjoy, but still has a little spice in the long finish that makes it much, much more appealing than many of the identikit 'anything but Chardonnay' wines that those more interested in a sound bite than open-minded exploration might choose.
Week D (2015) Dark Horse Chardonnay, California. 2013. Tesco £9 I have commented before on the misguided souls who, for inexplicable reasons, like to say that they enjoy anything but Chardonnay when drinking white wine.
White wine comes in a huge variety of styles, from sharp, acidic wines, though aromatic and floral, to fat and creamy. Almost all of them can be made from Chardonnay depending on where it is grown and the prevailing climate.
This one comes from the warm west coast of America where the fruit has plenty of sunshine to allow it to ripen fully and develop soft stone fruit and tropical flavours. There's plenty of sugar in those ripe grapes and so the alcohol reaches 13.5% before, but not at the expense of reduced acidity that would render the result 'flabby'.
The back label describes the wine as tasting of baked apples and pears and being layered with toasted oak notes of caramel and brown spice. I sometimes think the writers of tasting notes have indulged in a game of bullshit bingo, simply picking plausible words, and less plausible word combinations, from a brown paper bag and having a good laugh at the output. On this occasion I think they have actually tasted the contents of the bottle, although I may have added peaches and pineapple, as I claimed earlier.
I really liked this one and at the price think it is worth a small bulk purchase. It is smooth, easy to enjoy, but still has a little spice in the long finish that makes it much, much more appealing than many of the identikit 'anything but Chardonnay' wines that those more interested in a sound bite than open-minded exploration might choose.
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