Chardonnay

Bare Steel Through to Full Barrel

Chardonnay takes on whatever the winemaker gives it, so where a bottle sits on the oak spectrum tells you more than the vintage or the producer does. This page runs the whole range. Read it in three bands.

• Unoaked. Labelled “unoaked” or “non-oaked,” fermented in steel or concrete and never near a barrel. Green apple, pear and grapefruit, then honeydew and lime. The leanest end of the page, and usually the least expensive. Pour it cold when you want white wine and no discussion about it.
• Lightly oaked. Part of the blend barrel-aged, or rested in older barrels that lend texture without much toast. Vanilla, peach and pear over the citrus, with a rounder middle. Most wineries working here will tell you oak should be to wine what seasoning is to food.
• Barrel-fermented and reserve. Whole-cluster pressed, months in French oak, often off older or lower-cropped vineyards. Golden in the glass, ripe tree fruit, a little toast, and a longer finish. “Reserve” on a Canadian Chardonnay label almost always means this.

Why Canadian Chardonnay Tastes the Way It Does

Chardonnay is a famously blank grape. It takes on the character of where it grew and what the winemaker did to it. That is how one variety covers everything from lemon rind to buttered toast.

In Canada the growing season is short and the nights are cold, so grapes hold their acidity right through it. The wines arrive fresh, leading with citrus and orchard fruit. That style has a following: Niagara hosts the International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration, now in its sixteenth year, with Chablis and Burgundy houses pouring alongside the Ontario ones.

Where a bottle names its appellation, it is usually somewhere in Niagara. Prince Edward County and the Okanagan Valley both turn up as well, and plenty of labels just say VQA Ontario.

Oaked or Unoaked, and How to Tell

This is the decision that changes the wine most.

Unoaked spends its life in steel or concrete, staying lean and citrusy. It is the safer pick if you normally drink Pinot Grigio, Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc. Oaked spends months in barrel, which softens the acid and adds vanilla, toast and weight.

Labels say so outright more often than you would expect. Price is a loose signal at best — some of the more heavily oaked bottles here sit well below the reserve tier, and the cleanest unoaked ones are not always the cheapest thing on the page.

It's Also What the Bubbles Are Made Of

Around a quarter of this page is not still wine at all. Blanc de Blancs means a white wine made only from white grapes, and in Canada that almost always means Chardonnay. Traditional-method Canadian sparkling often blends it with Pinot Noir instead, resting two or three years on the lees before disgorging.

Worth knowing before you filter the page down to still bottles. If you are shopping the value end, our wines under $30 page spans the whole range. The rest of our Canadian white wine sits one level up.

Pick two or three across the oak spectrum and see which end you actually want. They come straight from the people who made them.