On the menu tonight was some healthy risotto, which meant a bottle of white to go in said risotto.  I picked this one up because 1) it was cheap, and 2) I’m sort of new to the chardonnay, so I’m still unfamiliar with even the low-level, buy-at-a-Wal-Mart chardonnay.  I’ve had a couple of cheap chardonnays as of late, and I must say, cheap chardonnays are really similar.  And I like them.

Thing is, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to like them.  Are they actually good and just don’t cost that much, or are they not very good and for whatever reason, my palette seems to respond to them?  Sure, cheap chardonnays are perhaps a little too sweet and lack the alcoholic kick and are generally unremarkable, but they just go down easy.  So on to this wine: hint of oak, strong apple flavor, and not much lingering on the finish.  Nothing that makes you think.  Nothing really new about wine.  But all the same, pleasant to drink.   Oh, and at the very least, it won’t ruin either your risotto or your bank account ($6).

Because I feel like there must be more to the chardonnay than this, I’m going to score it low, but really, it’s not so bad to drink.

Score:  84

As our new adventures in Chardonnay continued, we wanted to look at slightly higher-end wine – nothing terribly expensive, but something that took a few small steps above the $10 mark. Our subject, then, is a 2007 Kendall-Jackson Vinter’s Reserve Chardonnay – something that we paid about $13 at our local grocery store, but that you can likely find for a dollar or two cheaper elsewhere.

The most notable initial observation we had about the wine was that it does not have a very powerful aroma; a hint of grapefruit can, perhaps, be detected, but nothing overwhelming. The taste, though, is much more impressive, notes of several tropical fruits can be detected: pineapple and mango both standing out more than the rest.

What is so impressive about the Kendall – Jackson, though, when compared to the other bottles we have reviewed recently – is the fact that all of the elements are so controlled. With all of the other bottles we sampled, some element always managed to get out of the overall fabric of the taste and detract from the elements around them. Not so with the Kendall-Jackson: multiple layers exist, and they are all freely available for the drinker to explore.

If the Ravenswood Vinter’s Blend Chardonay was an example of everything that tends to push us away from white wines – simple, tart, out of control – this bottle is a reasonable example of how a good Chardonnay can still be interesting enough to hold our attention.

Score: 88

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Our white wine adventures continue.

Today we picked up two new Chardonnays, the less expensive of which was the ubiquitous Yellow Tail regular Chardonnay, which can generally be found for in the neighborhood of $6-7 a bottle.  There are a couple of reasons why this wine is worth reviewing: first, it’s found literally all over the known universe anywhere white wines are sold.  Second, the Yellow Tail Reserve Chardonnay is considered by people who claim to know a fairly good example, so the folks down under should at least know a little bit about making a decent tasting value wine as well.

First, this bottle has to be viewed in the context that it is one of the cheaper Chardonnays money can buy.  It’s not meant to be a $20 bottle, and it doesn’t taste like it.  Even compared against moderately more expensive ($9-10 bottles) wines, the Yellow Tail doesn’t quite have the same refinement.  Slightly tart with melon tones and a hint of vanilla and an overall pleasing bouquet, this wine is a good value at the price point, but is a bit too loud to pay any more for.

My ultimate feeling on the Yellow Tail is that it’s a solid B.  We don’t claim to be expert white wine drinkers, but I wasn’t at all disappointed with my purchase.  Clearly better than the Ravenswood we reviewed, but not as good as the other slightly more expensive Chardonnays on the table, the Yellow Tail was a solid performer, but not more than that.  If you’re looking for an inexpensive Chardonnay, this is one worth looking at.

Score: 82

Let’s start with a disclaimer:  I generally like Ravenswood.  A winery that boasts “no wimpy wines” is right in line with my philosophy – strong, bold flavors and powerful aromas are generally what I like in a wine. Since I’m staying with Seth this weekend, we decided to have one of our typical wine challenges, this time focusing on white wines, specifically Chardonnays.  Things sort of degraded when we ended up with one wine we liked, and one we really didn’t.

Things didn’t look good for the Ravenswood right out of the bottle.  That’s actually perhaps a bit of an understatement. The bottle we purchased yielded a slightly carbonated, very grapefruity, not all that enjoyable liquid that contained slight odors we could only associate with vomit.  After roundly abusing the Ravenswood and moving on to our other Chardonnay and checking in on the Yankee/Red Sox game, we came back and tried to come up with something nice to say about a wine really didn’t like, only to discover that the time sitting out had mellowed the Ravenswood Chardonnay completely.  The unpleasant odors had mostly vanished, but our overall impressions of the wine weren’t completely reversed.  Still overly tart to our liking without a lot of complexity, it wasn’t completely awful to drink, but didn’t rise above the level of what we would consider to be a generic, cheap white wine.

We don’t consider ourselves to be Chardonnay experts, but honestly we can generally tell the difference between two glasses of wine set right in front of us, at least to the point where we can pick the one we like the most.  The bottom line is that we would happily pay 3-4 dollars more for the Kendall-Jackson every day of the week.  As much as we like Ravenswood Zin’s, we’d recommend you give this one a wide berth.

Score: 76

My last Bay Bridge experience was, to put it mildly, one of the worst wines I’ve reviewed for this site.  Only one bottle – and a likely skunked one at that – has a lower score.  It was so bad, in fact, that I’ve had the other two bottles sitting in my closet for quite some time, hesitant to pull them out at all, but not wanting to open a bottle I’ll actually want to drink (read: enjoy) while processing pictures, I pulled out the second in the trilogy: the Chardonnay.

Shockingly, this wine isn’t bad.  I won’t go so far as to say that it’s good, or even that I would buy it again, but I will certainly finish the glass, which is more than I can say for the Cabernet.  The biggest problem this particular incarnation of Bay Bridge suffers from is its lack of character. Set next to a Yellow Tail Reserve (which I did once I realized it wasn’t truly awful), there’s no question of which wine is better.  The Yellow Tail is bright and fruity while at the same time offering complex notes simply absent in the Bay Bridge.  The Bay Bridge is slightly sweet, but comes off tasting almost more like grape juice than wine, though you certainly wouldn’t mistake the mistake.

What this is, then, is a 3 dollar wine I will actually save and use to cook with.  Is it as good as a “real” Chardonnay?  No.  But it is passable, and in fact you would even recognize it as a Chardonnay in a lineup.  While the Cabernet was not, the Chardonnay is, and while not a fantastic wine, it is a reasonable value. Now if only the Merlot will live up to the bar it sets…

Score: 76

As with most of my recent reviews, I feel like there is a need for a couple of disclaimers.  First, as you probably have already surmised, this is a review of a white wine, which is rather scarce on this site.  Simply put, we’re not huge white wine drinkers.  Second, as you’ve also probably already surmised, this wines is a Sebastiani – a winery we collectively like quite a lot.

So why do I even have a bottle of Chardonnay to begin with?  The answer is quite simple, my friends:  I needed it to cook with.  It’s a shame to use a wine just to cook with, though, and so I’ll pour a glass and enjoy it while I endure one of my other jobs, sorting through pictures.

So first things first: this is a great wine to cook with.  I’ve used it in two recipes so far, and I’ve been astonished by the flavor it brings to my meals.  In both cases, it turned an otherwise unremarkable sauce into something approaching divine, and for that alone I’ll continue to buy it. But really – how is it to drink?

I suppose the best thing I can say from the start is that I can’t find much to dislike about the Sebastiani, as I do with so many white wines.  It’s not too sweet or too fruity or too tart or too grapefruity or really too anything. There’s something about drinking it that is light and smooth and buttery and complex, and as I bring the wine into my mouth I’m instantly reminded of the wonderful flavors it brought to my food.  Even though each dish I made with it was quite different, I can somehow taste each of them in the wine, as if somehow those wonderful meals have been reborn in some small way by remembering them in the glass.  Indeed, if I had to nitpick at all, I would say that the Chardonnay is almost too subtle and smooth and unassuming – it is a wine I could drink without any thought, and in the end that’s not what I’m looking for.  It, like so many subtle white wines, lacks the true depth and complexity I taste in my beloved reds.

It is, then, perhaps, a drink for people who want something light and airy, subtle and not like wine – just a taste, but not the full course.

Score: 86