In cool climates (such as Chablis and the Carneros AVA of California), Chardonnay wine tends to be medium to light body with noticeable acidity and flavors of green plum, apple, and pear.

Viticulturalists Maynard Amerine and Harold Olmo proposed descent from a wild Vitis vinifera vine that was a step removed from white Muscat.

Chardonnay's true origins were further obscured by vineyard owners in Lebanon and Syria, who claimed that the grape's ancestry could be traced to the Middle East, from where it was introduced to Europe by returning Crusaders.

[8] Modern DNA fingerprinting research at University of California, Davis, now suggests that Chardonnay is the result of a cross between the Pinot noir and Gouais blanc (Heunisch) grape varieties.

The so-called "Dijon clones" are bred for their adaptive attributes, with vineyard owners planting the clonal variety best suited to their terroir and which will produce the characteristics that they are seeking in the wine.

Examples include the hybrid Chardonel, which was a Chardonnay and Seyval blanc cross produced in 1953 at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station.

[4] Chardonnay Blanc Musqué is mostly found around the Mâconnais village of Clessé and sometimes confused with the 'Dijon-166' clone planted in South Africa, which yields Muscat-like aromas.

In the nearby Les Perrières vineyard, the topsoil is only around 30 cm (12 in) above the limestone and the wine from that region is much more powerful, minerally, and tight, needing longer in the bottle to develop fully.

In South Africa, for example, regions with stonier, shaley soils and high clay levels tend to produce lower-yielding and more Burgundian-style wine, despite having a discernibly warmer climate than France.

A similar situation occurred in France, with the two vines being commonly confused until the mid-19th century, when ampelographers began combing through the vineyards of Chablis and Burgundy, identifying the true Chardonnay and weeding out the Pinot blanc.

The most expensive examples of Chardonnay from Chablis come from the seven Grand Cru vineyards that account for around 247 acres (100 ha) on the southwest side of one slope along the Serein River near the towns of Chablis—Blanchots, Bougros, Les Clos, Grenouilles, Preuses, Valmur, and Vaudésir.

In the United States, it is found most notably in California, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Washington,[4] but also in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vermont wine.

In the 1950s, James David Zellerbach, one-time US Ambassador to Italy in Rome, started Hanzell Vineyards winery and dedicated it to making Burgundian-style Chardonnay.

His success encouraged other Californian winemakers to follow suit and culminated in Chateau Montelena's victory over Burgundy Chardonnay in the 1976 blind tasting event conducted by French judges known as the Judgment of Paris.

[8] The California wine regions that seem to favor producing premium quality Chardonnay are the ones that are most influenced, climatically, by coastal fogs that can slow the ripening of the grape and give it more time to develop its flavors.

While the exact style of the wine varies by producer, some of the terroir characteristics associated with California Chardonnay include "flinty" notes with the Russian River Valley and mango and guava from Monterey.

A large portion of the Californian sparkling wine industry uses Chardonnay grapes from Carneros, Alexander, and Russian River valleys, with these areas attracting the attention of Champagne producers such as Bollinger, Louis Roederer, Moët et Chandon, and the Taittinger family, which have opened up wineries in last few decades.

New York's comparatively cooler growing season causes slower ripening, requiring a longer time on the vine, which allows the grapes to develop greater complexity and character at more reasonable sugar levels than warmer Chardonnay-producing regions.

Early in the 21st century, demand outpaced supply and there was a shortage of Chardonnay grapes which prompted Australian winemakers to introduce new blending partners like Sémillon (known as "SemChard") and Colombard.

[8] While the style of Australian Chardonnay is mostly characterized by the mass-produced products of the hot Riverland region, the cooler climates of the Southern Highlands in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania have been creating more crisp, less oaked wines with lime notes.

[7] A rare, isolated clone exists in the Mudgee region that locals believe traces its ancestry back to some of the first vines brought to Australia in the 19th century.

[3] Overall, there has been a shift in style since the 1980s from deep golden, oily wines with melon and butterscotch flavors to lighter, paler Chardonnays with more structure and notes of white peaches and nectarines.

The east coast of the North Island, in places like Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa, have seen the most success with Chardonnay wine that has noticeable acidity and leanness.

[7] Chardonnay has a long history in Italy but for a large part of it, the grape was commonly confused with Pinot blanc—often with both varieties interplanted in the same vineyard and blended together.

Besides Pinot bianco, Chardonnay can be found in blends with Albana, Catarratto, Cortese, Erbaluce, Favorita, Garganega, Grecanico, Incrocio Manzoni, Nuragus, Procanico, Ribolla Gialla, Verdeca, Vermentino and Viognier.

[3] Outside of the regions discussed above, Chardonnay can be found in cooler climate sites in Italy, Greece, Israel and Lebanon as well as Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, England, Georgia, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Serbia, Switzerland and Ukraine.

[3] Chardonnay grapes usually have little trouble developing sugar content, even in cooler climates, which translates into high potential alcohol levels and limits the need for chaptalization.

[26] Another reason for the backlash was that Chardonnay was seen as a symbol of the globalization of wine, in which local grape varieties were grubbed up in favor of the big names demanded by international markets.

Examples of this occurred in south Italy and Spain when ancient Negroamaro, Primitivo, Grenache and Mataro vineyards were ripped up in favor of new Chardonnay plantings.

[citation needed] By 2002, the association of Chardonnay with suburban, unsophisticated tastes was being explored in Australian TV show Kath & Kim, where lower middle class characters mispronounce the varietal as "kardonnay".