New Zealand Chardonnay vs Burgundy

Burgundy is getting hotter and hotter, and the climate is getting “almost” too hot to grow cool and balanced Chardonnays. The 2026 vintage is a clear example of this … where alcohol levels rose well beyond 14% and sometimes even to more than 15%

This sort of raises the question … are there any cool-climate Chardonnays we can enjoy that give us a reasonable complexity and refinement?

This is of course a matter of views and palates, but a tasting held in Burgundy this week showed that New Zealand Chardonnays have something to offer in this context.

Blind tasting – origin and points

To uncover the potential of the New Zealand Chardonnays, a group of New Zealand winemakers under the leadership of Steve Smith of Smith & Seth have decided to make an ambitious benchmarking test to compare the New Zealand Chardonnays and white Burgundies.

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BURGUNDY HAS AN OPPOSITE. IT MAY ALSO HAVE AN EQUAL.

An ambitious New Zealand wine benchmarking idea called Opposites < > Attract has put chardonnay from Pyramid Valley and Smith & Sheth to the ultimate test – tasted blind against some of Burgundy’s finest wines across three tastings in Christchurch, London and Burgundy. The results make a compelling case for our wines to have a place at the world’s fine wine table.

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The tasting was a blind tasting of New Zealand Chardonnay and white Burgundies to test two key questions

Firstly, could the tasters – including Jancis Robinson, Jasper Morris, Anthony Hanson and other big and small names – tell whether the wines tasted blindly were from Burgundy or from New Zealand? And in this context, rate the wines on a 100-point scale – to evaluate the qualities … for both the Burgundian wines and the New Zealand Chardonnays.

Simple? … as the experience showed on the day, not really. Interesting and rewarding, indeed so – but like all kinds of experiments like this, they have their strengths and weaknesses.

Results as the Winehog sees them

In general, it was rather difficult to separate the Burgundies from the New Zealand wines … not impossible but in some cases very difficult.

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