Black Chardonnay

What do you know about the Production Method: “Black Chardonnay”?

Meet Black Chardonnay
"A nearly forgotten technique for exceptional wines has some producers going back to black

The search for the soul of Chardonnay has been labyrinthine. There have been so many wrong turns. So many dead ends. So many retreats and reorientations. (Remember the 180-degree swing from heavily toasted oak to “inox” steel tanks?)
Theseus emerged alive from the labyrinth of Daedalus by holding tight to a piece of thread. Similarly, those on the cutting edge of Chardonnay production today are looking fearlessly forward while holding tight to the traditions of the past.
And those traditions include a bit of black magic: juice that comes pouring from the press as dark as pitch but is a shimmering green-tinted gold by the time it’s bottled. Some call this mysterious liquid Black Chardonnay."

Katherine Cole is the author of four books on wine, including Rosé All Day. She is also the executive producer and host of “The Four Top,” a James Beard Award–winning food-and-beverage podcast on NPR One.

That sounds like plain wrong. There’s no way Chardonnay can turn black, because it’s a white grape. From the sound of it, I guess this is just marketing talk for hyperoxidation of the must, making the rapidly oxidizing particles turn brown and drop out of solution - never heard of anyone calling it either “mysterious liquid” or “Black Chardonnay”, though. So: nothing new here, and neither is this “a nearly forgotten technique” - just a normal method of making white wines that can take on some aging.

00 Wines of Oregon makes “black” chardonnay; well is description from their website:

According to Kathryn Hermann, 00 Wines co-founder, Black Chardonnay features a traditional Burgundian method of extreme pressing, extracting more phenolics and fine particulates from the fruit. She explains, “As soon as the grapes are pressed, the resulting juice is dark and cloudy brown, almost black. We do not add sulfites to the juice; instead, we let it oxidize. This scares many vintners because it looks like the Chardonnay is ruined. However, this early oxidation is important because it develops complex aromatics, flavors and texture with the additional benefit that it prevents the wine from oxidizing later in the bottle.”

This subject popped up in a past thread. A couple of Oregon wine makers weighed in that they make Chardonnay in that, or a similar, manner, and the technique is common. I’ve never had a liking for marketing hype, or false claims of being new and different.

Hey y’all, new member here. The part of that article that jumped out to me is where the author wrote that wines made from an oxidized must are more resistant to POx. He doesn’t go as far as “black” Chardonnay, but that’s the approach Raj Parr says he takes for his.