I have recently had the pleasure of undertaking a Chardonnay tasting, with the following wines:Alamos Chardonnay 2007 Catena, Mendoza and Macon-Milly Lamartine 2007 Bourgogne, France. Now I have to say I have never been part of the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) group and never fully understood how anyone could be so I was going into the comparison tasting without any prejudices.
Starting with the Alamos Chardonnay 2007 Catena, Mendoza this is a good base Chardonnay for the price, approximately £6 a bottle. It has a lemon green appearance but with a watery outer rim. The nose is a surprise with tropical fruits including mango, pineapple, vanilla and toffee butterscotch notes showing that the wine is still youthful to developing. The tropical nose flavours follow through to the palate with hints of toffee too. This wine is ready to drink but because of the youthfulness could be aged and would go very well with a creamy Italian Carbonara dish.
The Macon-Milly Lamartine 2007 Bourgogne, France has a more lemony appearance to it, rather than the lemony green appearance of the Alamos Chardonnay. This wine has distinct tones of banana, pineapple, oaky vanilla and burnt toffee on the nose which shows that it is more on the developing side compared to the Argentinian Chardonnay. This wine has pineapple, apricot fruit flavours with secondary flavours of vanilla and burnt toffee which would go perfect with a risotto style dish.
Although the Alamos Chardonnay 2007 Catena, Mendoza is a great base Chardonnay the Macon-Milly Lamartine 2007 Bourgogne is a really good step up, and at around £12 this is well worth a try.
You can pick up these wines from Majestic Wine and read more on the Chardonnay debate at Majestic Wine Blog .