Chardonnay — Burgundy Style Winemaking Protocol

Chardonnay carries little varietal aroma, so the vineyard target is balance and health rather than a specific aromatic pool. Aim for moderate yields and even, complete ripeness with acidity intact; overripe fruit loses the tension the style is built on. Cool sites and limestone soils favour the taut, mineral end.

Keep vine nitrogen adequate for clean, complete fermentations and healthy lees — the ferment and the lees do the aromatic work here, so a sluggish, under-nourished ferment costs texture and invites reduction faults rather than the desirable struck-flint.

Pick for balance: roughly 20.5–23 °Brix with acidity still 6–8 g/L and pH at or below 3.35. This is a touch riper than an aromatic white — the style needs mid-palate weight — but not so ripe that acidity collapses and the wine turns broad and flabby.

Whole-bunch pressing means hand-harvesting clean, sound fruit. Cool fruit helps, but oxidation is far less feared than in a thiol style — a little juice oxidation is actually part of the method (below).

The Burgundian default is to press whole clusters without crushing or destemming: the intact bunches and stems create drainage channels, so slow, gentle pneumatic cycles at low pressure give a clean, low-solids, low-phenolic juice.

Keep the press fractions separate — free run and light pressings are the core; hard-press fractions carry more phenolics and are kept apart or blended with care.

Unlike a reductive white, you do not want ultra-clean juice. Settle only lightly, leaving more solids (roughly 200–400 NTU); those solids and a little turbidity feed the barrel ferment's complexity and the lees.

A measured amount of juice oxygen — from the press and settling, sometimes a deliberate air exposure — is traditional: it precipitates the most oxidisable phenolics before fermentation, so the finished wine is more oxidation-robust and less prone to premature browning. This is the exact inverse of thiol-white handling.

Usually minimal. Whole-bunch pressing already yields clean, low-phenolic juice, so a pectolytic clarification enzyme is optional and only used if a firmer settle is wanted.

Aromatic glycosidase enzymes are not relevant — Chardonnay is not terpene-driven, and the style is about texture rather than freeing grape aromatics.

Many white Burgundies ferment on indigenous yeast in barrel for complexity and a slow, layered ferment. Where a strain is inoculated, choose a neutral, reliable one that respects terroir, tolerates cool barrel temperatures and lower nutrients, finishes dry, and — if anything — builds roundness and a touch of reductive struck-flint rather than an overt aromatic imprint.

Whichever route, manage nutrition and oxygen so the barrel ferment stays healthy: a stressed Chardonnay ferment reduces to unpleasant sulfides rather than the fine, sought-after flint.

Rack the lightly-settled juice to barrel to start or finish fermentation in wood. Fermenting in barrel — rather than ageing a finished wine in barrel — is what integrates oak seamlessly: the wood character is metabolised and bound during active fermentation instead of sitting on top as a flavour.

The standard vessel is the 228 L Burgundy piece; the proportion of new oak is the main oak dial — near zero for Chablis, 20–50% for the Côte de Beaune, higher for grand cru. The cool cellar gives a slow barrel ferment around 16–20 °C.

Malolactic is standard for the style: it converts sharp malic acid to softer lactic acid, rounding the palate and adding lactic, buttery (diacetyl) and complex tones. It is usually allowed to run naturally in barrel after alcoholic fermentation, alongside the lees.

For a fresher, leaner style, block or run only partial malolactic to keep acidity and tension. Diacetyl is not fixed once made — ongoing lees contact lets yeast reabsorb it, so the buttery note is a function of timing and lees, not just of whether malolactic happened.

The wine ages sur lie (on its fine lees) for months. Bâtonnage — stirring the lees back into suspension — builds body and roundness, releases mannoproteins, and buffers both oxidation and reduction, keeping the struck-flint note in balance.

More stirring pushes the wine richer and creamier; less keeps it leaner and more mineral. Watch the redox balance throughout — too little movement and air lets reduction build past flint into fault; too much and you trade the flint and freshness for a broad, oxidative profile and premature-oxidation (premox) risk.

The barrel élevage is deliberately, gently oxidative — the slow oxygen through the wood is part of building texture and oxidation stability, unlike the sealed reductive handling of a thiol white. Keep SO₂ low through malolactic (SO₂ inhibits it), then set and maintain SO₂ once malolactic is complete.

Premature oxidation is the style's known risk: manage it with adequate SO₂ after malolactic, healthy lees and glutathione, careful and regular topping of barrels, and clean, low-oxygen bottling — protective, without reverting to the fully reductive regime of an aromatic white.

Chardonnay is still protein-unstable, so a heat-test-guided bentonite fining is needed; extended lees ageing lowers protein somewhat but does not replace the test. Because the aromatics are far less fragile than a thiol white's, timing is less critical — a post-blend polishing dose is fine.

For tartrate, cold stabilisation is perfectly acceptable here (no fragile thiols to lose), or use CMC after protein fining and filtration. Where calcium bentonite or any calcium source has been used, watch calcium tartrate as well as bitartrate.

French oak dominates — tight-grained forests (Allier, Tronçais, Vosges) for subtle, spicy, slow oak transfer. Toast is typically light to medium for integration rather than overt char.

The 228 L piece is standard; larger formats and older or neutral barrels give texture and slow oxygenation with little oak flavour — the route for Chablis and for any producer wanting the fruit and terroir, not the wood. The proportion of new oak is the intensity dial.

Assemble the barrels, fine gently if needed, and filter lightly. The wine is usually bottled after roughly 9–18 months on lees.

Handle protectively at bottling — adequate free SO₂, minimal oxygen pickup — under cork or screwcap, but without the extreme low-oxygen targets of an aromatic thiol white.