Bouchard Chardonnay
I suppose it is inevitable that the whites we use for
cooking should come up this near the front of these columns for my vaunted
list. This is the other half, along with the Fat Bastard, of the duo that will
generally be seen in the refrigerator for cooking wines, though this one is my
own personal preference. Both are from France and unlike the Pinot Noir from
Bouchard, this one is always on the money. Both again also have the screwcaps.
One of the biggest differences between the two is
drinkability. This one is very smooth, velvety and indeed is almost buttery. It
has a silkiness I find very appealing, yet it strong-tasting enough to assert
itself in cooking. It has a dry element, to be sure, but when testing, I found
myself at the bottom of a bottle of it solo and would have been happy to keep
soldiering on, which is unusual for a white…for me, anyway. If something is
that good to drink and also cooks as well as it does, it could be a godsend –
I’m not saying it isn’t – but it’s definitely a keeper.
We had gone through a number of bottles of whites, of
varying qualities, with me rejecting them for one characteristic or another and
I was extremely pleased when I found this one. I didn’t exactly run out to the
street to do cartwheels, but I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind. Though the
price has gone up slightly, it’s still moderate enough to make this a fantastic
value. I almost considered making a new
category called “Standby”, which would contain this and maybe one or two
others, but terms like that and “Fallback” and so on are usually covered well
enough by the Standard rating.
Another point of separation for this might come in the fact
that this one is a lot more easily found than the Fat Bastard. For a long
while, I would not drink a wine if it didn’t come from France. Though I learned
the error of my ways some time ago, I still find it a bit of tickling amusement
that, unintentionally on my part, both of the cooking wines come from there,
especially considering that country’s rich culinary traditions. Perhaps it is
coincidence, considering their equally rich winemaking traditions, perhaps it
is something more…
