For anyone who fondly imagines wine is more about absolutes than fashion, the roller-coaster ride of the Chardonnay grape provides a salutary lesson. Until the early 1960's it was unknown by its varietal name except in a few locations in central and northern France. It was, nevertheless, the variety that produced some of the world's greatest dry white wines as well as the great blanc de blancs of Champagne.

Californian wine producers, more willing than most of their New World counterparts to learn by emulation, were probably the first to notice the correlation between these fabulous dry white wines and the cultivar they had in common.

They planted it extensively and subjected it to the same serious wood vinification regime they imposed on Cabernet. This in itself was hardly original, though at the time the use of new oak anywhere in France except for the Bordeaux First Growths was considered an unimaginable extravagance.

This turned out to be a marriage made in the same heaven occupied by Jayne Mansfield and the other well-endowed dames of the Playboy centrefold. The rich, plush peachy fruit married - or at least shacked up with - the butterscotch vanilla aromas of the heavily toasted oak, yielding something akin to liquid toffee.

For wine drinkers brought up on austere, often flinty white wines, the effect may have been shocking. However, for a new generation of consumers, the sumptuous, slightly sweet, opulently juicy Chardonnays opened up a whole new world.

In very little time Chardonnay became the tipple du jour. People who never thought of themselves as wine drinkers became hooked. When, in the early 1980s, the first bottles of Chardonnay became available in SA, Hamilton Russell Vineyards could blithely price them at R30 a bottle when a Château Mouton Rothschild fetched less than half this.

The first wave of the fashion had a slightly extended life in SA as the real shortage of Chardonnay was prolonged by the discovery that most vineyards had been planted to Auxerrois in error. For at least five years Cape Chardonnay was such a rarity that lack of availability, rather than intrinsic quality, drove the demand.

In the meantime the marketers of wine around the world have spent about 15 years trying to sell the punters a new fashion. ABC - anything but Chardonnay - has been their refrain. In what can only be termed a suicide strategy, Australia's largest wine company even sponsored a symposium at Vinexpo to debate exactly the theme. I was one of the panellists and I asked the organisers what possible benefit could flow from this to a business, 70% or so of whose white wine turnovers depended on the success of Chardonnay. The reply was that they hoped the discussion would prove there was nothing in the world quite like chardonnay.

Needless to say, wine drinkers everywhere have discovered that there are many other brilliant white varieties and for at least the past five years the Chardonnay producers of the New World have been a little on the back foot. Anticipating the trend, growers have systematically underplanted and quality fruit is in short supply - and not cheap. The nine-year price trend for deliveries to co-op cellars shows Chardonnay at 170% compared with Sauvignon at 140%, and Cabernet at 41%.

South African Chardonnay has passed through most of the fashion phases of the past 25 years. Remarkably few producers aimed for the over-oaked flat, clumsy style that had seemed so seductive when the Californians and Australians conquered the world less than a decade before. In fact, perhaps more so with Chardonnay than any other cultivar, the Cape's positioning statement - midway between the Old World and the New - is most evident.

Wines are generally crisper, showing restrained tropical and citrus fruit rather than the overly creamy, funky flavours of wannabe Burgundies. We have producers whose wines are comfortably regarded as international benchmarks - Ataraxia, Chamonix, Hamilton Russell Vineyards, Jordan and Rustenberg - to name a few.

We also have, courtesy of the wide-ranging terroir opportunities of the Cape, a breadth of styles and flavours. Some of these are very much the result of winemaker intention: the méthode ancienne of Springfield, for example.

Others are strongly site-driven. Weltevrede's Philip Jonker makes several different cuvées, sourcing the grapes for each from single vineyard sites whose geology, in his opinion, plays a crucial role.

Climate is equally important: Elgin vineyards - such as Paul Cluver's and Oak Valley's - present more citrus-like flavours, while Stellenbosch sites such as Jordan and Rustenberg are overtly tropical.

The Chardonnay producers are coming to Joburg, hosting a seminar to enhance awareness of the quality and diversity of Cape Chardonnay. The event is on Sunday, October 25 at the Country Club's Woodmead venue and offers 36 wines as well as food samplings. For more info contact juanita@jordanwines.com

From The Weekender, 17 October 2009