I sat with two Australian winemakers in Rowley Leigh’s Café Anglais last week cursing Bridget Jones. Phil Sexton, Steve Flamsteed and I, plus 14 bottles of wine, had met up to discuss the state of Australian Chardonnay. We agreed that Chardonnay in general and Australian Chardonnay in particular is suffering a serious image problem, thanks to Ms Jones and her demotion of the category to singleton’s solace. “Even last night when we did a tasting at Hotel du Vin in Bristol, the people there weren’t too keen on Australian Chardonnay. “It would be a tragedy if this ABC business really caught on,” said Sexton, referring to the Anything But Chardonnay movement begun at least a decade ago as a reaction to what looked then like Chardonnay-mania on the part of vine growers, wine retailers, restaurateurs and consumers.

I would argue that ABC sentiment is at its peak right now. From New Zealand to South Africa to South America, it can sometimes seem as though wine producers want to talk about every vine variety and varietal wine under the sun except for the world’s most planted white wine grape. The wine world seems thoroughly bored by Chardonnay at the moment – unless of course it is labelled Montrachet, Grand Cru Chablis or Blanc de Blancs Champagne. The popular conception of Australian Chardonnay is of a thoroughly industrial, acidified, full bodied, vaguely oaky, branded wine sold in high volume at heavy discounts to the undiscerning.