Chardonnay Redemption

Chardonnay. It's like the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she's good she's very, very good, and when she's bad she is horrid (Unlike me. When I'm bad, I'm very, very, VERY good.).

I cannot think of a single wine that I have had more bad experiences with than Chardonnay. Some are downright hateful. Burning, fuming with alcohol, bitter as a runner-up in the Miss America pageant, bad Chardonnay will violate your taste buds and burn off your nose hair. Others are so oakey you might as well throw it to the beavers.

Can I tell you how elated, how overjoyed I am to have finally tried a truly wonderful Chardonnay? And it from ONTARIO. La!

Now if you'll remember, I was not fond of Le Clos Jordanne Pinot Noir.  But after trying their Chardonnay, I'm going to buy a bottle and give the Pinot Noir another chance.  Because the Chardonnay (Le Grand Clos 2007) was OUT OF SIGHT.  No lie.  Maybe I drank the Pinot Noir too early.  I'll tuck it in the wine rack and wait patiently for a year or two.

The Chardonnay is perhaps the most elegant wine I've experienced to date.  So perfectly balanced with mineral, fruit and buttery richness, the exact flavours are hard to put a finger on.  The mineral taste I can't describe, it's just not in my taste repertoire (until now).  The fruit seemed yellow/orange stone fruit, like apricots or yellow plums.  And there was a rich, not buttery but somehow like that flavour, somewhere in the caramel spectrum of things but I can't place it exactly.  Not honey, not butterscotch, not butter, but something really, really good.  Go find out for yourself; waggle down to the LCBO, plonk down two twenties and take a bottle home.  It's worth it.

Switching gears, I had the pleasure of having lunch with one of my favourite people--Mlle. Karen--at one of my favourite restaurants--The Explorer's Café.  Thank Dionysus for the Explorer's!  It's the only restaurant in town that cares about serving good, interesting wine.  And I am so pleased to report that along with their new lunch menu, they have some new wine.  I washed down my squid salad with Accuro Torrontés 2009.  Very floral and refreshing, and Torrontés is a new grape to me!  This is a signature grape in Argentina.  A little online snooping and I found photos of the winery:

I want to go to there.

Seriously, Mendoza, Argentina, sunshine, mountains, wine, me, forever...Heavy sigh.  I am ready for my wine adventure.

'Til next time,

Barb