Things You'll Need:
- A classic style of Chardonnay (CA - Napa or Sonoma; Burgundy - Chablis, Meursault or Pouilly Fuisse)
- Your technical tasting glass
- Your tasting sheet or a notebook where you can keep your wine notes
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Step 1
If you are unfamiliar with how to conduct a tasting please see my article on how to taste a wine and identify varietals, it'll guide you through the basics and I have also uploaded a tasting sheet that you can use for conducting an analysis of each varietal.
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Step 2
Now that you have familiarized yourself with the process and you have your tasting sheets, pour 2 to 3 ounces of wine into your glass.
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Step 3
where do you think this one's from?Now take notes of the visual elements of the wine you just poured. You should first notice that the color is straw green to moderate for cooler climate, mostly old world chardonnay and a moderate to deep yellow or gold color for new world styles predominate in California. This color is indicative of oak.
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Step 4
Swirl the glass, take note of the legs. High viscosity with thick legs will be indicative of warmer climate. Remember when we were taking about the grape's potential to build high levels of sugar in warm climate? Well when all that sugar is fermented it becomes alcohol.
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Step 5
Now let's smell our wine. What do you get on the nose? Pineapple and tropical notes coupled with yeasty, buttery, toast, caramel popcorn aromas are sometimes associated with Chardonnay from Napa Valley while Chablis will have cleaner notes of green apples, citrus, lemon, pear and a slight minerality. By the way all the toasty, caramel and buttery smells that come of the California wine are indicative of oak aging (vanilla toast) and malolactic fermentation (buttery aromas).
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Step 6
Now lets have a taste. Depending on the region you selected your Chardonnay will be somewhere around medium acidity, of moderate to high alcohol and medium to full body (this is the weight of the wine on the tongue).
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Step 7
Be sure to make detailed notes of your observations. Try to figure out how your observations are explained by the style or terroir of the region you are sampling. If something that you have experienced seems out of line with the region or with what you know about the grape be sure to do further research.
