Allison Wallace writes Allison Wallace is the co-author of AdVINEtures, an award-winning wine and travel blog that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. With visits to over 85 countries, she pairs a global palate with formal training, holding WSET Level 2 and Canadian Wine Scholar (CWS) designations. Her storytelling blends deep wine knowledge with a passion for place, capturing the people and regions behind the glass.
Chardonnay … uncanceled
I’ve never understood the ABC crowd. Anything But Chardonnay? I used to think they were joking. But no—there it was on T-shirts, in tasting rooms, whispered with dramatic disdain at wine bars by people who otherwise seemed reasonable.
Apparently, somewhere along the way, Chardonnay became the scapegoat for a generation of over-oaked excess. A grape held hostage by its own popularity. I missed the memo. While others recoiled at the mere mention of it, I was falling deeply in love with its many guises—steely and precise, lush and creamy, structured and sparkling.
To me, Chardonnay was always a prism, not a punching bag.
I’ve adored its lean, limestone-laced elegance in Chablis. I’ve marveled at the quiet power of a well-aged Meursault or Puligny-Montrachet. I’ve cheered on the renaissance in California, where restraint and texture have redefined the grape in regions like Sta. Rita Hills, Sonoma Coast, and the Santa Cruz Mountains. And don’t even get me started on Margaret River or the surprises coming out of Oregon, where volcanic soils and native ferments give Chardonnay a verve all its own.
This grape is the ultimate shapeshifter—not because it lacks character, but because it’s so utterly responsive. It listens. It absorbs. It reflects. Site, soil, climate, hand—all leave their fingerprint, and I find that riveting.
So, I never joined the ABC chorus. In fact, I’ve made it a bit of a personal mission to convert its members.
It’s not hard. You start with a Chablis: mineral, linear, bracing. No butter. No toast. Just cold stones and lemon zest. Or perhaps a single-vineyard bottling from a cool-climate site, fermented with native yeasts and raised in neutral barrels. I pour, I wait, I smile.
The look on their face is always the same: surprise, then curiosity, then conversion.
“This is Chardonnay?” they ask.
Yes. Yes, it is.
Because that’s the thing—most people who claim to hate Chardonnay have only met one version of it. Usually the loudest. Chardonnay is not a monologue, it’s a conversation, and it deserves to be heard in full.
For me, it’s also a benchmark. If I want to understand a winemaker’s vision, I ask for their Chardonnay. Do they ferment in steel or oak? Do they stir the lees? Pick early or let it ripen? Chardonnay lays it all bare. It rewards intention and punishes shortcuts. It can be a minimalist’s dream or a maximalist’s playground. And it never hides.
That kind of honesty is rare in wine. And it's why, more than any other grape, Chardonnay continues to teach me something new every year.
It has taught me to look beyond assumptions. To trust my palate over trends. To listen more closely to nuance. To embrace the spectrum instead of insisting on a single point.
Today, Chardonnay remains the bottle I bring when I want to challenge expectations—gently, persuasively. It’s the wine I serve to skeptics, to friends who “don’t like white wine,” to anyone ready to rediscover the joy of being surprised.
This is my ode to a grape that never needed defending—but I’ll happily defend it anyway.
To Chardonnay: the endlessly expressive, unfairly maligned, gloriously complex grape I’ve loved from the start.
And to every ABCer I’ve ever converted: You’re welcome.
The photo, captioned 'just harvested Chardonnay grapes in Oregon's Willamette Valley', is the author's own.
