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But now some contrarians are raising their profiles. They are vintners who eschew the use of oak as they make chardonnay. The chardonnays they're putting out generally are easy to spot: The label will include such terms as "unoaked," "oak free," "naked" or "virgin."

They would be easy to spot, that is, if there were more of them. The movement is small and cautious. Today, chardonnay that hasn't seen wood is just a drop in the ocean.

No producer of chardonnay without oak is predicting that it will be the next big thing in wine, but all are optimistic. Each of them has been surprised by the reception for unoaked chardonnay.

"There are more people looking for this product than I expected, so we're trying to fill a demand that is much bigger than I thought," says Dan Lee, owner and winemaker of Morgan Winery in Monterey County.

With the 2001 vintage, Lee made 500 cases of his first "Metallico," a chardonnay whose name was inspired by the stainless-steel tanks in which it was fermented.

Demand for subsequent vintages has grown, with production of the 2005 version hitting 5,000 cases.

At St. Supery Winery in Napa Valley, small lots of oak-free chardonnay made in 2003 and 2004 sold so well to wine-club members that CEO Michaela Rodeno boosted production of the 2005 to 5,000 cases. With the 2005, St. Supery abandons entirely chardonnay that has been barrel fermented and oak aged, says Rodeno.

And Three Thieves, a brand of Rebel Wine, also in Napa Valley, just released its first white wine, a 2005 unoaked chardonnay in a screw-cap, 1-liter jug.

Three Thieves had been thinking of adding a sauvignon blanc to its lineup, but winemaker Joel Gott says two factors - buzz about unoaked chardonnay and a high-quality harvest of the varietal last fall - persuaded him and his colleagues to switch their thinking to chardonnay.

Gott and other winemakers taking the plunge with oak-free chardonnay attribute consumer interest in the style to burnout from chardonnays that have become just too weighty and complex to enjoy with the lighter styles of food now popular.

"I think people are getting tired of heavily oaked wines with very little fruit. When they come into the tasting room, they don't even want to taste chardonnay," says John MacCready of Sierra Vista Vineyards & Winery in El Dorado County.

Luisa Ponzi, winemaker at her family's Ponzi Vineyards in Oregon's Willamette Valley, where she has just released her first oak-free chardonnay, echoes MacCready: "There is a reaction to the big, buttery style of chardonnay. People are turning away from that, and this is a nice option."

Both MacCready and Ponzi, however, aren't giving up on chardonnay fermented and aged in oak barrels. "I still feel you can't beat a great barrel-fermented chardonnay if it is done correctly, with minerality and acidity in it," Ponzi says.

Wine drinkers accustomed to the typical California style of chardonnay need to revise their expectations as they start to familiarize themselves with interpretations that haven't seen oak.

With unoaked chardonnay, all they will taste is fruit, and chardonnay on its own isn't the most expressive of white wines.

"People might not get it, especially if they are looking for oak and butter," says Lee of Morgan Winery. "Unoaked chardonnay is fruit-driven. It's a little simpler, perhaps less complex, more monochromatic than polychromatic, but with good acidity."

Joel Gott of Three Thieves says of unoaked chardonnay: "You get the body but not the viscosity. You don't get that sweet oak flavor. You still end up with richness, but without that overbearing sweet heaviness."

Source: “Dunne on Wine: What's a chardonnay without oak? Not bad,” Mike Dunne, Sacramento Bee, April 26, 2006