This whole ABC (anything but Chardonnay) movement has me at a loss, how do you dislike one entire varietal? I can totally understand disliking Bud Light or Coors Light because each can (or bottle) is the exact same as the one beside it, but Chardonnay runs the gamut…just like every other varietal. You won’t hear me saying I don’t drink Syrah, even though Syrah is generally not my favorite varietal or that I can’t stand Zinfandel. In fact, there are so many Chardonnay lovers that there’s an entire event dedicated to just Chardonnay called the Chardonnay Symposium in Santa Maria, CA!
What’s Wrong with Chardonnay, Anyway?
Chardonnay comes at us from heavy oak all the way to stainless and from super buttery and creamy to quite light and refreshing. ABC? Really? There’s just no need to hate on such an awesome varietal…maybe you just haven’t found the kind you like yet. My suspicion is that it’s the new cool thing in the wine world…a few people start some movement and it gains traction but for no apparent reason.
Maybe some well-known wine writer wrote about his or her distaste for Chardonnay and a bunch of people jumped on board…to be honest, I would not know because I don’t read the stuff wine writers create. Whatever the reason for hating an entire varietal just leads me to believe you probably “generally” hate other things in life…and what a sad way to live.
So break off the self imposed shackles and get your asses to the 2012 Chardonnay Symposium to learn yourself up and taste some amazing Chardonnay. If you can’t make it to the Symposium the next best choice is get your Chard hatin’ booty to BevMo (or somewhere similar) and grab a variety of Chardonnays and do a blind tasting with friends.
Lastly, I hereby am changing ABC from “anything but Chardonnay” to “anything but complainers”…we need less complaining anyway! Cheers!
Related articles
The Chardonnay Symposium is such a great opportunity for any ABC’er. They can have the opportunity to try Chardonnay as the neutral grape that it naturally is, or like you say try some with varying amounts of oak, 20%, neutral, or 200% new. Hungarian, American, French, oaks can all be tried side by side. Then you can go down the whole line of ML, string lees, or even concrete. Point is I agree in that there are so many types of Chardonnay and no other place does a consumer have this type of opportunity to taste so many from OR to Sonoma to Paso to the symposiums backyard of Santa Maria Valley.
Can you tell I’m excited….can’t wait and looking forward to seeing you both there!
@awanderingwino Amen Shawn…to be utterly honest it just ticks me off when people dislike an entire “thing” (whatever that thing may be) when there is so much variety in that one “thing”. I go back to the Bud Light thing, I can understand people disliking Bud Light because there is no variation, however, when someone says they dislike ALL light beer…really? I bet in a blind tasting they would find a light beer they like. Same goes with the ABC deal…people just get to judgmental in my mind…similar to how I’m being judgmental toward ABC’ers. Haha. See you there my friend!
The complaint is made that Chardonnay is the vanilla ice cream of wine. To that, I say, what is the most popular ice cream flavor sold in the US? That’s right, vanilla.
@Mitch Bakich Cheers to that Mitch!! And as a side note I would prefer a glass of Chard over a bowl of ice cream.