I don’t get this. And I profess to be fairly ignorant in the process of making wine but doesn’t most white Burgundy undergo malolactic fermentation? I rarely, if ever, find buttery white burgs.
I’ve found to avoid the buttery notes in Chardonnay, then avoid Chardonnay that comes from a moderate to warm climate that undergoes mL- i.e. Napa Valley or the warmer parts of Russian River Valley or other moderate to warm areas in Sonoma. To me, these wines show best when they avoid mL.
In cooler climates- Burgundy, cool Coastal CA regions (SRH, SMV, SC, SLH), Willamette Valley and others- IMO mL notes are generally much better integrated into the profile of the wine and aren’t a distraction.
Rick - there is often a bit of a buttery note to those, but there are ways of controlling the total amount you’ll experience. And don’t forget that your brain synthesizes things so if a wine has had a lot of lees stirring and some wood in addition to full malolactic fermentation, it will seem different from a wine that has maybe not had new wood or wood fermentation or lots of lees contact, etc. It’s not a single thing that we perceive, it’s the sum of everything, which is why tech sheets won’t always let you know what the wine is like.
Anton, I always thought it was ML, but someone in a local hipster wine shop implied it was mostly new oak.
!!
That’s all you need to know then amigo. The hipsters know everything, especially if they’ve been drinking wine for almost a whole year.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a bit of psychology going on here, too. Caramel is made with butter and so we may think butter when we smell the caramel notes from oak. Just a surmise that would explain why some oaky wines seem buttery.
Gary,
Everybody likes to use Rombauer as the poster-child for buttery/oaky/overblown/soft/fat Chards. It’s time to rethink that. The recent Rombauer Carneros Chard '13 is not that at all.
It has acidity, a restrained touch of oak, no butter at all, nice melony Chard fruit, maybe a bit of mineral. In fact, it’s how they’d make Chard in Tuscany if they could!!! 
Tom
We need to find a new poster child!
Mer Soleil perhaps?
Another consideration is how the final blend of a wine is made. Plenty of winemakers use combinations in their final cuvee, so you could have a certain number of barrels which underwent 100% malo, 100% new oak, another block of barrels with malo and older or neutral oak, yet another grouping which see no malo and maybe aged in stainless, which all are blended together to create what we experience in the bottle.
Butter in Chard is indeed caused by malolactic fermentation. As mentioned, Diacetyl is a byproduct of this secondary fermentation. Several things affect the level of Diacetyl and likely many more affect its perception. Among the factors which affect Diacetyl levels would be amount of Malic Acid converted to Lactic Acid, ML bacteria strain, pH, health of ML bacteria during fermentation, and length of lees contact.
Converting malic to lactic does soften the acidity of wine, since malic is diprotic and lactic is monoprotic. So, malic is 2x as tart in terms of its contribution to TA, which makes up most of our perception of tartness.
I guess that the % alc., pH and TA (titratable acidity) affect the perception as buttery is more offensive to me when acid is low and alc. is higher.
It is worth mentioning that Diacetyl is present in red wines too, as virtually all of them are fully through ML. Most people don’t pick it out unless the wine started with very high malic levels and the wine has not much else going on.
I am not an expert on the chemistry (someone who is can answer this better) but as I understand it there is more acidity in most white Burgs and less of it is malic (so less gets converted to lactic (milk) acid).
I do get buttery flavors in some white burgs, but I don’t mind it so much there. I suspect higher acidity and minerality make it more palatable to me.
I once had a Columbia Crest Grand Estates so buttery I took a Lipitor after I drank it.
Yup…MerSoleil would be a good nominee I suspect.
Tom
Passaggio makes un-oaked Chard. Nice and crisp. Let’s the grape flavors come through. Delicious stuff.
During and right after ML fermentation, there can often be a strong aroma of diacetyl, but it pretty much vanishes within a few months after ML is complete. In my opinion, the buttery aroma in Chard is really a new oak aroma, and the idea that only Chards that have gone through ML are buttery has gotten passed down over the years. As mentioned above, virtually all high end white Burgs go through 100% ML, but people don’t talk about their being buttery, usually.
Can’t yeast consume Diacetyl or is it the Lactic Acid Bacteria that consume it? I had always read in enology texts that in order to avoid a heavy buttery chard you ought to hold off on adding So2 after MLF completes so the yeast or bacteria have a chance to consume it all?
Yes, and no.
True that not all 100% ML whites will appear buttery, but that does not show that the Oak is the cause of that aroma.
The science tells us that the butter flavor comes from ML. The perception of it is another story.
I think people who “talk about” butter in chard mainly do so in ML +, high pH, high new wood wines.
I make Chard that is ML+ but all stainless. I would not say that it is buttery, but if you look closely, there is some there. I think perhaps Oak brings it forward and acid helps hide it?
It would be interesting do some tasting trials by adding diacetyl to various wines and check out what tasters say.