TO chardonnay or not to chardonnay, that is the question Shakespeare should have asked. Actually chardonnay is in my humble opinion the key to the wine world. If your taste buds can't unlock the king of grapes then all hope is lost, folks.

Now, normally, I'd just be raving about the ones aged in oak with perhaps a side nod to the others but all that’s changed during lockdown. I was bored and in my boredom, I went back to chardonnay in all its different forms and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Chardonnay’s spiritual home is Burgundy in France where it produces everything from bone suckingly dry chablis to great big fat buttery Montrachets, which I love but need to sell a kidney to buy. The fat buttery wines are the heavily oaked versions but you can take oak ageing all the way down to a few months of kissing the wood to finish the wine off. Other than chablis, whose soil helps make rather unique chalky wines, most of the other end of the chardonnay spectrum – unoaked – comes from the new world.

The Aussies lead the way for unoaked chardonnay with light aromatic wines with heaps of tropical fruits on the palate but the rest of the world are producing plenty of corkers now. Strangely the only chardonnays I've tasted recently that I really didn't like were from the South of France and Chile.

The former are disappointing across the board with wishy washy fruit and often a strange waxy palate that's better suited to riesling. For some reason, the Chilean chardonnays just give me a headache. I've no problem with the taste and overall quality but I'm a wimp when it comes to the old bonce pain.

Herencia Trabajo Chardonnay, Argentina

This is really good for the price. Fresh, fruity citrus flavours with crisp acidity and a clean finish. It's unoaked.

Oddbins £13

Astrolabe Province Chardonnay, New Zealand

Creamy elegant fruit and seriously sublime. Sublime

The Good Spirits Co £19