Chardonnay: oak changes everything, from Chile to Meursault

Three labels in the section say so themselves with the word Unoaked, between €11.90 and €16.80. For the others, the product page gives the vessel: stainless-steel tank for a wine without oak; barrel, barrique, foudre, bâtonnage and fine lees for an oak-aged wine. When the words new oak appear, they are almost always accompanied by a percentage.

Two Chileans sold by the bottle make good starting points: the Santa Rita 120 Reserva Especial at €9.40 and the In Situ VSE Classic at €9.90, the latter fermented in stainless-steel tanks at low temperature, at 850 metres above sea level in the Aconcagua Valley. Both show the grape without oak, which is the best way to find out afterwards whether you like oak.

Part of the section can be bought by the bottle, the rest in lots. Availability varies greatly from one country to another: Burgundy whites are almost all sold by the bottle, Argentina offers about half, South Africa and Australia a handful, and New Zealand is sold in lots. The price shown on the product page always tells you what it covers.

Climate first: cooler in Burgundy, which gives more acidic, tauter wines at the same ripeness. Then price, and in our cellar it does not go the way you might think: the Chilean median is €13.90, the Argentine median €25.00, the Burgundy median €32.50 and the American median €46.00. Here, a Chardonnay from California costs more than a village Burgundy.

Yes, and all sold by the bottle. The Meursault Les Clous du Domaine de la Roche Aiguë is €66.00, the Saint-Aubin 1er Cru Le Champlot de Sylvain Langoureau at €59.90, and the top of the French range is a 2013 Meursault-Charmes 1er Cru from the Hospice de Beaune, at €188.00. The rest of the area can be found in our collection Côte de Beaune.

It depends entirely on the ageing. A tank-aged wine, lively and fruity, is drunk within two to three years of the harvest and has nothing to gain from waiting. A barrel-fermented wine, with its lees and bâtonnage, commonly lasts five to ten years and gains in complexity. The section offers an example with the 2013 Meursault-Charmes from the Hospice de Beaune, still on sale today.

Six, between €21.90 and €48.00, blanc de blancs made by the traditional method: two South African Cap Classiques, two Argentine sparkling wines and two Australian ones. Only one is available by the bottle, the Caelum Eclat Extra Brut at €25.00. For French bubbles made from the same grape, take a look at our collection Champagne.

A tank-aged wine is served cool, at around 10 °C, which brings out its tension and saline finish. A barrique-aged wine is served two to three degrees warmer; otherwise the cold shuts down the hazelnut and toast aromas and leaves only the bitterness of the oak. A bottle taken out of the fridge at 6 °C shows almost nothing: better to leave it on the table for twenty minutes.

No, a few are blends in which Chardonnay dominates or plays a major role. The Bousquet Chardonnay Torrontés combines two grape varieties, San Marzano's Edda Bianco adds Moscatello Selvatico and Fiano, the Paso Primero Blanco mixes Gewurztraminer, Chardonnay and Riesling, and Bodegas Tobía's Daimon White brings together five. Each wine's product page gives the exact composition.

The median price in this range is €31.80, and the best-stocked bracket runs from €20.00 to €40.00. That is where you will find most of the food wines, ripe enough to stand up to a sauce without tipping into oak. Below €20.00, the range offers easy-drinking, rather lively Chardonnay. Above €80.00, the choice narrows, and the price gap owes more to rarity than to style. The rest of our white wine range lets you compare with other grape varieties.