Sometimes your tipple of choice is a strong clue to how old you are, and for anyone who came of age in the Eighties or Nineties and fancied a glass or three after work, chardonnay was the leading choice for white .
And no one adored it more than whose fictional diary-style newspaper column led to bestselling books and blockbusting films starring . “Dear Diary,” begins one memorable entry in the original 1996 book bestseller, Bridget Jones’s Diary. “I’ve failed again. I’ve poured an enormous glass of chardonnay and I’m going to put my head in the oven.”
Clumsy heroine Bridget, who logged her weight and the number of cigarettes she smoked each day, along with confessions about her madcap love life, took vulnerability mainstream long before anyone had heard of Brené Brown. And, very often, she turned to a large glass of chardonnay.
As the fourth instalment, , lands next week, just in time for , it's fitting that this white wine is also making a comeback.
The infamous wine spilled over into all kinds of popular culture. Who can forget glossy drama Footballers Wives? The show taught us about WAGS and even named one of its lead characters Chardonnay. But as the Noughties drew to a close, wine experts reported that chardonnay was falling out of favour - 200,000 fewer shoppers bought it in 2007-8 compared to 2006-7, equating to a 3% slump in sales.
Pubs shifted to sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio, while experts blamed it on poor Bridget, saying that as someone who used wine to drown her sorrows, she was no longer a woman to aspire to. “Chardonnay has made some of the ’s greatest wines. Everyone appreciated it,” claimed legendary wine writer Oz Clarke. “Until Bridget Jones, chardonnay was really sexy. After, people said, ‘God, not in my bar.’”
But Bridget’s back - and so is her favourite wine that - unfairly in my opinion - got a bad reputation due to the cloying taste of a few overly oaky New World bottles. “Full-bodied, oaky chardonnays fell out of fashion in the mid 1990s, so winemakers worldwide were quick to make lighter, more elegant styles,” explains Sally Lanham, ’s buying manager for white wine.
“Recently, however, there has been a ‘counterculture’ revolution with big, full throttle styles of chardonnay becoming popular with lots of oak and rich, buttery flavours. Some 25% of white wine sales at Asda are chardonnay. It’s one of the most versatile grape varieties out there, so there is sure to be one that suits every palate. Popular varieties include chablis, Macon Villages and chardonnays from and the USA.”
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There are great homegrown options too. Last year, the UK’s biggest wine maker Chapel Down in Kent released its first chardonnay, as did celebrity chef Michael Caines, from his Lympstone Manor vineyard in Devon. Last week, released a new ‘sustainable’ chardonnay, Kooliburra Hidden Sea. For each bottle sold, the equivalent of 10 plastic bottles worth of waste will be removed from the ocean.
Though the New World chardonnays are reportedly the ones that gave the wine a bad name, they are also leading the renaissance. One is the popular Californian wine Bread & Butter, sold in Ocado, Majestic and Sainsbury’s, with Ocado reporting a 296% increase in searches year on year. “It’s clear that there’s a renewed thirst for a bolder style of chardonnay,” says Napa Valley winemaker Linda Trotter.
“Although other white wine grapes may be competing for our attention, it’s clear that some styles of chardonnay are enjoying a surge in popularity, particularly those that cater to evolving consumer tastes,” says Will Bridges Webb, buying manager for wine at Ocado Retail, which stocks 130 chardonnays.
“Chardonnay’s resurgence can be attributed to brands embracing its diversity. We’ve expanded our range by over 100% in the last year to meet this growing demand, and it’s clear our customers are rediscovering their love for this timeless grape.”
“At Majestic the love of chardonnay has never gone away,” says buyer Jonathan Tiffany, “I think a lot of the aversion was due to richly oaked wines, but that trend seems to have reversed with wines such as Bread and Butter which has been in Majestic for nearly eight years seeing increased sales every year.”
We can confirm that chardonnay is truly back in favour. But until we see the film, we can’t say whether Bridget’s still using it to self soothe. I predict she’s mixing it up with a few cocktails and kombuchas, and has reduced the size of her large glass to a medium.
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