I tasted my first Australian chardonnay in the mid 1980s when I was told to think pineapples, think butter and think oak, writes Derek Kingwell.

I must admit I hesitated before taking my first sip.

It was a bit abrupt but it made the desired impression.

The British palate adored such easy flavours and confidence enhanced all the more by telling us what grape or grapes we were drinking on the label.

Oz chardonnay offered great flavour for value and, as the French winced, the sales of Aussie wine doubled year on year.

From that point Australia started to win the wine game.

Although we still drink more French wine than Australian, it is tipped that in the very near future we will be spending more money in total on Australian wine.

The ever-increasing presence and popularity of chardonnay will account for a large proportion of that.

Growers favour it because it's easy to cultivate, winemakers favour it because it's so flexible and drinkers favour it because, with few exceptions, it gives immediate satisfaction.

Australian chardonnay's meteoric rise began in the early 1970s in the Hunter Valley when Murray Tyrrell made chardonnay the fashionable grape when its Vat 47 became a world cult.

By 1975, Brian Croser's chardonnay from Petaluma won global recognition and over the next 15 years, many wines waltzed off with further awards and Aussie chardonnay began to fill our shelves.

Around this time Australian taste itself was shifting from beer to wine as a refreshing drink and, as this idea grew, output was beginning to switch from the traditional fortified wines to table wines.

With grape varieties, as with people, being in the right place at the right time counts, and chardonnay is planted and cosseted in all the fashionable places including Australia where, along with New Zealand and California, it is the most planted white variety.

One of the reasons chardonnay was so enthusiastically adopted in the New World was that, unlike, say sauvignon blanc, it proved to be enormously adaptable to a wide range of climates and soils, largely resisting disease and producing generous yields.

Chardonnay was the perfect subject and its malleable nature suited the new producers of the last three decades.

Without Australian and other New World winemakers we would not have the modern varietal chardonnay we feel so comfortable with.