French Chardonnay with ‘legs’ is a big, fat deal

I wandered through the SLGA the other day and noticed that there are a number of French Chardonnays available for well under $20. In fact, virtually all of them are clustered around $15.

Now, before you gasp and swoon, please remember that such a price is equivalent to about $11 in 2000, and of course the largest inflator of that price — taxes — is running faster than the CPI. (To really ice your cake, the capricious and ill-conceived liquor taxes in Wally World mean that about $200 million in government income goes annually to Alberta. Needless to say, growth in wine sales in Saskatchewan ranks below ‘could do better’ right down at ‘worst in class.’)

Les Jamelles grows their grapes down in the sunny Pays D’Oc, the heart of the Occitan. They can do just about anything they want with the juice, from Californian style to flinty Chablis. (OK, the mineral content isn’t quite there.) Right now, they’re going with the more traditional French style, and that is something to celebrate.

The bouquet is complex, mostly pear, apple, citrus, and just a touch floral, lemon flowers, maybe. The palate is refreshing, with a nice brisk attack that mellows into a round Chardonnay mid-palate. The finish, however, is what sets this wine apart. There is that real almond finish there, the kind of thing that winos spend their lives hunting.

Fat Bastard Chardonnay is most likely sourced from the same region. (Southern France has any number of growers contributing to the mid-level wines.) The term “fat” in wine nomenclature refers to the viscosity. The higher the levels of glycerol (sugar) the more viscous or syrupy the wine. Indeed, if you give this wine a swirl in your glass you will discover the sheeting on the side, or “legs” takes a while to develop and tends to drip slowly.

This style of wine was all the rage a decade back. After awhile, the wines became so contrived, so gross and flabby, the majority of the public abandoned them. This isn’t to say viscosity is a bad thing. It has a place in the nature of wine, and particularly in the nature of Chardonnay, where much of the appeal comes from the mid-palate and the finish. Such wines feel “round” in the mouth. Rather than flat across the tongue, there is a sort of sensation of weight and fullness in the middle of the mouth.

Fat Bastard is such a wine, with tropical fruit flavours and some almond notes towards the end. It’s really quite a decent drop and will go well with slightly richer fare like cream sauces or fish in butter.

If you find you’re like me and are curious about how wine changes over time, there’s a great experiment waiting for your glass in the Co-op. I came across a Wild Pig Chardonnay there that I would guess is shortly to be delisted. It is a 2012 screw top, and yes, indeed, it shows some bottle age. Obviously not as much as under cork, but those biscuit flavours that you get with a ripe

champagne are starting to appear on the finish. For an inexpensive Chardonnay, this is the one I’d pick up as many as I could aford for the rest of the year. It provides you with the kind of sensations that made Chardonnay famous in the first place.

By the way, all of the above go great with popcorn.