Descriptor: toasty, round, baking spice-scented, honeyed and bright, with baked apple fruit and/or lemon curd fruit aromas and very often a lengthy nutty finish.
Basic factors influencing this style:
Goes well with cold-water fish such as sea bass, salmon as well as pork and chicken.
Barrel-fermented Chardonnay—typically aged on its lees in new or lightly-seasoned French oak for several months, in the Burgundian style—has become the calling card of modern Spanish white winemaking in many regions, much to the chagrin of native-varietal traditionalists. Yet even the staunchest purists among them tend to acknowledge that somehow—the climate? the soils?—Navarra gets it right; the region’s best examples of this style tend to be regarded as the best in Spain. Also included in this category are the occasional single-varietal Malvasia or Garnacha Blanca bottlings, as well as very rare, very fine oak-aged Viura.