Chardonnay Day

Last week I celebrated my first ever Chardonnay Day. Yes, that's right, a whole day dedicated to drinking, talking and tweeting about Chardonnay.

I'm not the biggest Chardonnay fan, but I put this down to past experience of bad bottles and Kath and Kim's Cardonnay references sticking in my head. So the special Chardonnay master class dinner, hosted by Peter Bourne at Coast restaurant at Cockle Bay Wharf, was a very pleasant surprise.

The dinner followed a two hour taste and tweet up to celebrate the international day. Ten carefully selected wines were chosen to be matched with food, which was to be honest pretty thin on the ground, as the growing number of inebriated guests proved.

Peter Bourne made for a great host, talking through each wine at the beginning of each course. He was joined by Andrew Spinaze from Tyrrell's Wines and David Bicknell from Oakridge Wines who also added their own commentary.

Favourite Chardies from the night included the 2009 Freycinet Chardonnay from Tasmania, a crisp, dry and fresh wine that could have almost been mistaken for a Riesling, and the 2009 Philip Shaw No.11 Chardonnay from Orange which had a much more traditional Chardonnay taste which was warm, soft and oaky and went beautifully with the Scallop with celery, apple and walnut salad.

Throughout the event, a screen at the side of the room showed the hundreds of wine lovers and enthusiasts tweeting away about their Chardonnay Day experiences and favourite bottles. It was certainly an experience and a great learning curve for someone who had almost written off this great varietal.

Next stop, Cabernet Day!

H