MANY WINE lovers can remember when not that long ago most of the big-name Chardonnays from the top white wine cellars in South Africa (and elsewhere) smacked of oak. Heavily wooded Chardonnay became a turn-off, and an increasing number of both casual as well as serious wine consumers preferred wines that hadn’t seen the inside of a barrel when it comes to white wine of any kind. But times changed, winemaking styles shifted, plenty of the top SA Chardonnays now show restraint in the oaking department and/but there is also a growing number of producers making wines that proclaim ‘unwooded’ or ‘unoaked’ on the label.

Question is: can a completely unwooded Chardonnay offer the same complexity, can it make for a serious wine, or is it limited to good quaffing stuff at best? A casual Top Wine SA tasting that compared a 2013 Sterhuis Unwooded Chardonnay with an obviously wooded Meerlust Chardonnay of the same vintage had most palates enjoying the Sterhuis but some saying there was more to the Meerlust, that the unwooded wine was perhaps slightly lacking in concentration but slipped down more easily. The jury is still out as to whether the Cape’s unoaked Chards can be classy enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the wooded masterpieces, but that they can be respectable alright is clear from the Top 10 Chardonnay producers who fielded one over-and-above their wooded flagships in 2015:

Chamonix Unoaked Chardonnay – R78 pb for the 2014 vintage

GlenWood Unwooded Chardonnay – R95 pb for the 2013 vintage

Glen Carlou Unwooded Chardonnay – R83 pb for the 2013 vintage

Jordan Unoaked Chardonnay – R88 pb for the 2013 vintage

Sterhuis Unwooded Chardonnay – R55 pb for the 2013 vintage

There are also numerous other Classified Chardonnay producers participating in this category, some choosing not to use a bold ‘unwooded’ stamp on their labels:

Alexanderfontein Chardonnay (Ormonde) – R49 pb for the 2014 vintage

Bouchard Finlayson Chardonnay Sans Barrique – R120 for the 2014 vintage

Brampton Unoaked Chardonnay – R58 pb for the 2014 vintage

Danie De Wet Chardonnay Sur Lie – R57 pb for the 2013 vintage

De Wetshof Bon Vallon Chardonnay – R104 pb for the 2014 vintage

De Wetshof Limestone Hill Chardonnay – R87 pb for the 2014 vintage

Delheim Unwooded Chardonnay – R77 pb for the 2013 vintage

Diemersdal Chardonnay Unwooded – R58 pb for the 2014 vintage

Eikendal Janina Chardonnay – R56 pb for the 2013 vintage

Franschhoek Cellar Our Town Hall Unoaked Chardonnay – R50 pb for the 2014

Good Hope Unoaked Chardonnay – R65 pb for the 2013 vintage

Groote Post Unwooded Chardonnay – R76 pb for the 2014 vintage

Kleine Zalze Cellar Selection Chardonnay – R47 pb for the 2013 vintage

Môreson Dr Reason Why Unwooded Chardonnay – R89 pb for the 2013 vintage

Springfield Wild Yeast Chardonnay – R90 pb for the 2013 vintage

The River Garden Chardonnay (Lourensford) – R43 pb for the 2013 vintage