“Oh dear, the American beat out the Australian, something that I hope won’t be happening at the macro-level,” writes wine columnist RICHARD CALVER after pitting an Orange chardonnay against a Californian one. 

I’d invited a friend to Sunday dinner with me and my son. You know the person is a good friend when immediately she said: “Great, what wine should I bring?”

We discussed the notion that I often made food where I could add to its volume proximate to serving in case my daughter was able to come to dinner following her Sunday hospitality work.

Hence, I was making chicken risotto finished with goat’s cheese, continental parsley and pine nuts and I could adjust the ingredients to expand the servings if necessary. 

“Hmm”, she said, “sounds like a chardonnay will match.” I agreed as it was chardonnay that I was adding to the risotto bianco component of the dish.

I’d bought an Architect Phillip Shaw chardonnay, made in Orange, and I had secured a 2022 for a nudge over $20. The Halliday Wine Companion says that the 2023 version of this wine is a good value for money buy and is rated 91 points. Halliday rates the winery at four stars now that Phillip Shaw has opened his own winery passing his namesake winery to his two sons. A third of the bottle of this wine went into the risotto. 

We decided to taste the Architect beside the chardonnay that my friend brought to dinner, a Californian wine; Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve chardonnay 2022 produced in Sonoma County. I hasten to add that this wine was part of her cellar and it was bought well before the current Trump tariff madness. Speaking of which, this is the best meme I’ve seen to date on the ridiculousness of the tariff imposition:

Trump to Vance: China’s mining too many ores.

Vance: What to do?

Trump: Increase tariffs to force them to mine less ores.

Vance: Mine fewer

Trump: Don’t call me that!

I looked up the price on the internet after she left and the Californian wine is around $25 a bottle. 

Although it meant that I’d have to have six wine glasses at the ready, it was interesting to compare the two wines side by side as an aperitif. 

The Orange wine was much paler than the Californian with the Orange wine having a hint of green in a light yellow mix; the Californian was a much darker yellow. 

The bouquet of each also differed markedly. The Orange wine had a hint of citrus and white flowers whereas the Californian was vanilla (signifying oak treatment) and toasted nuts. 

On taste the Orange wine didn’t give much, a very subtle fruit finish, clean and fresh. It was more like a refined pinot grigio than a traditional chardonnay.

On the other hand, the Californian was retro: butter and oak and a lovely mid-palate creaminess. It didn’t belt you around the head with oak or butter like some chardonnays from the 1970s that I recall. This one was much more balanced. 

With the risotto, the Orange wine faded and was anodyne. The Californian stood up to the food’s flavours and maintained its character.

Oh dear, the American beat out the Australian, something that I hope won’t be happening at the macro-level, especially given Donald Trump’s remarks about food on the menu when he spoke during the presidential election campaign: “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats.”