Chardonnay - Grape Variety

Chardonnay can cope with a range of climatic conditions and wine making techniques and as such is perfect at communicating terroir; chardonnay wine styles range from the crisp, acidic wines of champagne (where the fruit is essentially picked under-ripe), via the steely, mineral wines of Chablis, through the nutty, complex examples from the Côte de Beaune, to the (now seldom seen, hitherto ubiquitous) greasy, deeply coloured and over-oaked New World examples. It is however perhaps most famous as THE white grape of Burgundy, where it is responsible for all that region's finest wines.