We took a few bottles of wine down to the Gold Coast over the Easter Long Weekend to share with my partner’s family, and two of these happened to be Chardonnay. We have a surplus in our wine fridge you see. This is probably because we have a tendency to buy it when we are on wine tours. I think it’s because the wine makers are always so excited to let you taste their chardonnay. They are never buttery like the chardonnay’s of old, and will blow your socks off if you just give it a shot.

As a result I think wine tasting, at least where I’ve been, is skewed towards this variety. To be honest though, we tend to enjoy those we try. Although we aren’t big white wine drinkers, we always seem to keep buying them. So we decided it would be a good opportunity to enjoy some of the bottles lying idle in our fridge.

Chardonnay: the original polarising wine

Unfortunately, chardonnay is one of those polarising varieties that people either love or hate. I’ve never met someone who is just ‘ok’ with chardonnay. I have definitely had some shockers which nearly turn me off it. Some are so punchy, but I’ve also had some amazing ones that I love. Needless to say, bringing two bottles of this polarasing variety wasn’t the best plan as my partner’s mum is not a fan. It fell on my partner and I to finish off the chardonnay. But what it did do was provide an opportunity to try two different types of chardonnay and compare.

I’m not going to name and shame the one I didn’t enjoy. But the first bottle we opened definitely wasn’t my favourite, being very buttery. For those who don’t know about chardonnay, from my wine knowledge (which has been purely developed based on many wine tours…so definitely don’t take it as gospel), chardonnay was traditionally a very heavy white that was notorious for being very yellow in colour because of the heavy use of oak barrels in the wine making process. These create a very strong flavour, and chardonnay got a reputation for its thick, buttery taste. A lot of people don’t like this taste, especially as mass production reduced the quality.

The first wine definitely reminded me of these sorts of wines, and I can imagine for most chardonnay haters they would have been completely turned off all over again by this one because it was so heavy. I’m not a fan of heavy white wines myself. I find sometimes chardonnay leaves a horrible taste in my mouth long after I drink it that actually turns me off drinking wine (can you imagine? Now you know my reaction is bad). So needless to say I was avoiding opening the second bottle of chardonnay after trying this one.

A Spanish chardonnay?

But on my partner’s birthday we opened the second bottle, which was from Virgin Wines and was the Campino Chardonnay 2016. This was from my glorious box of European wines that I was speaking about a few weeks ago which I highly recommend for European wine lovers. All I can say was this chardonnay was completely opposite to the first one we had, and absolutely delicious. It is from Spain which is a country I wouldn’t normally pick for making chardonnay (it is usually from colder climates like Melbourne and Burgundy in France), but I love the flavours they got out of the chardonnay grape for this bottle of wine, and I think this is why it is so surprising!

Why I loved it

This wine is barely oaked, and so the tastes of the grape are able to shine through. This creates quite a sweet and delicate wine. It is soft and easy to drink, reminding me more of summer than winter. The colour is so light you wouldn’t know it is the sister of the classic ones that you tend to see around. This is a product of the wine making process not using oak.

What to enjoy it with

This chardonnay was perfect for any light meal or just to enjoy of an afternoon. That’s what I liked so much about it – you didn’t need a meal with it like I feel normal chardonnay requires to cut through the heaviness in the flavours.

The verdict

This wine was absolutely delicious, light and perfect for summer drinking. Give this one a go to see if it changes your mind about chardonnay!