Everyone Listen Up!

Oscar Meyer, Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch. One of these is great, but they're all figments of the American system. It doesn't end there, and since this is a wine blog, wine is what I will blog. The point is America is a brand name country up the wahzoo, and it sucks.

Before people in California sometime in the 2oth century decided to label wines by the varietal wine was labeled by region. French wine still is for the most part, but this too is starting to change to cater to Americans who don't know that red Burgundies are Pinot Noir. This doesn't really matter, but what does is that soo many people in the US of A choose wine based on the varietal; and this, now this, has got to stop.

As I'm writing this I'm listening to Styx's Mr. Roboto and drinking a 2006 Canoe Ridge Chardonnay (surprise, surprise!). The bottle was free because it had sediment floating in it and my co-workers didn't want to pour it for samples. I took the hit and brought it home. The point of all this is this: Chardonnay is probably the biggest example of a varietal becoming a brand name or buzz word for the the American public. I don't know the data on this but I'm sure it's the top-selling white wine in the home land. It's as if people know what they're getting with Chardonnay and they know they like it so it takes out all the risk, when it couldn't be further from the truth.

I can't think of another varietal which varies so greatly in style from winery to winery. I have a suspicion that the bottle I'm currently consuming is slightly "corked" because I normally like this wine, but I'm not feeling it right now (in a literal sense). The '06 Canoe happens to be aged in French oak, 10% of which is new, which is nice when I feel like drinking some wood chips with my grape juice. On the contrary, Chardonnays from Burgundy often never see oak, and thus end up fruitier and crisper, while many Chardonnays from California resemble eggnog more so than wine*.

Chronic Chardonnay or Cabernet drinkers listen up: there is plenty of good wine available these days. It's much more interesting, fun, and educational to drink a Torrentes from Argentina rather than another Santa Barbara Chard. Better yet, drink a white that isn't a single varietal, such as a Bordeaux. Tomorrow I might go downtown to Vintage to chillax, and I might just say, "Bartender, a Chardonnay please", as if it's just grape juice, and as if I wasn't a wine snob, just to see how the other half lives.

*Wine nerd notes:

1.Chardonnay is weird. I'm not sure who started this whole trend, but many California Chardonnays are like red wines in disguise. The reason is many winemakers allow the juice to undergo malolactic fermentation, something which I still don't completely understand and will be addressing again in the future. This process lowers the acidity, which is desirable in red wines, but like many wine snobs, in white wines I'm addicted to the acid. This is what makes New York Riesling good and California Chardonnay... less than desirable.