August 3BOTTLES: Chardonnay is on sale now. Subscribers can swing by to pick up their sets (sorry, no shipping until September: it's stinkin' hot!) or we'll keep them cool for you in our cellar. If you're not currently a 3BOTTLES wine club member, we do have a few stray sets you can buy if you act fast. $55 per, lots of awesome text included (see below), and more than a few glasses of good wine to accompany it. 1. What to Plant? When the wine boom in the late 1960s and 1970s began in the countries we call the New World, the winemakers in places like California, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, and many more had a dilemma. What white grape should they plant? Chardonnay was one of only a few choices, because there were few famous white grapes at this point in history and the white Burgundies of France were probably the most celebrated. 2. The Brand... Chardonnay has achieved success at every price level from the low end industrial plonk to the very most expensive single vineyard white Burgundies… and every point in between those. The word Chardonnay has become a powerful global brand as big in some demographics as Nike or Tide. The grape is easy to grow, ripens well, and offers the winemaker a neutral canvas with which to create a wine. And consumers love the soft, easy drinking style of Chardonnay. 3. Food Chardonnay... The sneering about Chardonnay by the wine cognoscenti, which is similar to that sentiment toward Merlot, is somewhat unfair. Here’s the back story… I have heard them called McChardonnays as reference both to their prolific offerings which flooded the market and to the mediocrity of the wine. Many of the wines were overripe and over-oaked, but they took our Coca-Cola drinking nation by storm. The cognoscenti were embarrassed by their native land, and demanded we drink ABC… anything but Chardonnay. Often these high-alcohol and sweetish tasting wines overwhelmed food and inspired the term “cocktail wine.” The typical Cocktail Chardonnay is grown in hot sunny climates, developing considerable ripeness and weight. The sugars in the grapes translate into alcohol in the wine. If winemakers use too much oak aging (often to mask the defects in the wine) the resultant wine turn into big, buttery wine with little subtlety and complexity. These wines are a disaster paired with food but serve well as a cocktail.  This month's 3BOTTLES could be called "Food Chardonnay."