TOP 20 UNDER £20: SOUTH AMERICAN CHARDONNAY
According to the US parenting website BabyCenter, the girl’s name Chardonnay saw its usage peak in the 1990s, at 47 babies per million. It has declined since, to the point where www.parents.com ranked it the fourth worst baby name of 2019, stating: ‘Only next-level wine moms need consider this one.’
That’s Chardonnay: ubiquitous yet often invisible, fashion victim and victim of fashion. According to Kym Anderson’s Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where? (University of Adelaide Press, 2013), the worldwide Chardonnay vineyard nearly trebled between 1990 and 2010. An OIV study in 2017 cited Chardonnay as the fifth most widely planted wine grape variety in the world, with an area of 211,000 hectares globally.
There’s a yawning gulf between the deplorable and the divine when it comes to Chardonnay – yet many regions manage to produce both. South America is no exception.
Chile has the largest plantings of Chardonnay in South America, with 11,297ha (8% of the national vineyard). It’s the fourth most widely planted variety after Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot, producing 91 million litres of
