Viognier

Published on: July 21, 2002

by Dennis Manuel

"Viognier has a haunting, floral scent like a faint and disturbing echo from the Rhine and a very long, spicy aftertaste."
THE WORLD ATLAS OF WINE, Hugh Johnson, p. 126

Viognier is indeed a wonderful wine.

Viognier is a white grape varietal that was almost unheard of outside the Rhone Valley thirty years ago, mainly because it was so incredibly scarce. Grown on the precipitous hillsides of the Rhone Valley it was rarely exported, and for the most part consumed locally. The 1968 French agricultural census put the total acres of Viognier in production in the three main appellations where it is grown, Condrieu, Château-Grillet, and Côte-Rôtie, at 35 acres.

Today Condrieu alone has over a 150 acres of Viognier planted, and Ch‰teau-Grillet over 10 acres. Ch‰teau-Grillet is considered by many to produce the definitive Viognier.

But more importantly, the grape has captured the attention of California wine growers. In 1991 there were 79 acres of Viognier in California. By 2000 there were 1,777 acres of Viognier. For comparison, there were almost 60,000 acres of Chardonnay planted in California in 1991, and by 2000 Chardonnay acreage had grown to 103,491. In other words, less than double.

Viognier acreage had grown 22 times in that same period! The wine has taken off, and has nothing but a brilliant future in front of it.

Just so you don't think the only two countries producing Viognier are France and the U.S., South Africa and Australia are also producing Viogniers, but generally speaking they produce a much lighter wine, because they harvest early, and don't get the full fruit and body of French and U.S. Viogniers.

The grape does have a few problems, though.

It is difficult to grow, and prone to powdery mildew. Due its low acidity, it fades quickly and has to be drunk young.

Because of those problems, it's expensive. A good Viognier will retail for anywhere from $30 to $50 a bottle, and some more than that. That includes both French and U.S. Viogniers. I'm not including the South African or Australian Viogniers, because what they produce is usually somewhat different, and does not always express the brilliance of the grape.

There are exceptions. The California winery, Praxis, offers their 2001 Viognier for $14, and the French Domain Chapoton 1999 can be found for $12. There are others, and you will have to go to a good wine store to root them out, but it's well worth the effort.

Viogniers are not everywhere, due to the cost of production and the fact that they fade quickly, which means they do not have a long shelf life.

Nonetheless Viognier, because of its bright fruit perfume is being used as a blending wine with a lot of other whites. Some producers are blending Viognier instead of aging in oak, to give their wine the perfumed heady nose without the heaviness of oak. So, slowly but surely it's finding its place.

You can get around the price if you do some research in your better wine stores and start off with one or two of their lower priced Viogniers. A god wine store is not going to carry a dog. They want you to be happy and come back.

Mind you, a big wine store might only have five or six U.S. Viogniers and three or four French Viogniers. Nonetheless, this is a varietal worth trying, and once you're hooked, as more and more people are becoming, you'll be shopping for that Viognier "find" every time a white wine is called for.

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