Wineguider wine reviews

I purchased this 2010 California chardonnay at Costco for $11.

As you may know, I am not a huge fan of California chards.  Kendall-Jackson’s relatively new Avant chardonnay has less of the chemistry-experiment taste than their regular chardonnay, and less oak and butter.  From the front label:  “Fresh.  Crisp.  Clean.”   “100% Jackson Estates Grown.”   “Hand selected from our vineyard estates.”  Ignoring whether any good wine has ever had this much sales jargon on the front label, we see that the back label describes fermentation in both oak barrels and stainless steel tanks.

But the real message here isn’t sales hype — it’s what it tells you when a giant wine producer like K-J releases an alternative to its time-honored and extremely strong-selling recipe:   Americans are getting tired of the oak-and-butter thing.

In the end, I feel this is a barely average white wine that has the notable virtue of a clean finish.  The deletion of the heavy oak and butter leaves behind a watery mixture of pineapple, pear and mildly spicy cloves.  I don’t agree with the promise of fresh and crisp, and I’m still getting some of that weird chemicals taste.

Not recommended.