The Next Big Thing?

It’s new, it’s French, it’s darned hard to say if you’ve never heard it correctly said, and it’s the most distinctive of the new white grape varieties to charm Australian winemakers. It’s viognier and it’s pronounced ‘vee-on-yair’ and it’s quite possibly our next fad white variety.

Another recent arrival to Australian shores, viognier joins the likes of sangiovese, barbera, petit verdot and pinot gris and the born-again interest in marsanne, grenache and mourvedre, which we used to call mataro. What’s it about? What should you pay for it? And who are the players?

For several centuries viognier has been associated with the northern Rhone, where its most important wine is Condrieu. The only other appellation in France to make exclusively from viognier is the tiny Chateau-Grillet, whose wines are as interesting as they are scarce. It is also traditionally grown at Cote-Rotie, where it may comprise up to 20 of its shiraz-based wine, adding fragrance and fleshiness. Recent years have seen substantial plantings in the Languedoc region towards the south of France, while the global fashion for Rhone varieties has seen it blossom in California and Italy to a lesser extent in Argentina and Australia.

Viognier is perhaps the only genuinely prestigious white variety whose wines are best enjoyed while relatively young. The deepish yellow colour of its grapes expresses itself in its wine. Typically, viognier has a lifted and often musky perfume of apricot blossom, honeysuckle and apricot. Its mouthfeel is luscious and viscous, often backed with the warmth and texture of surprising alcoholic strength. Viognier’s acids are relatively soft, enhancing its ready approachability but simultaneously reducing its cellar life. But the point about viognier is its vibrant intensity and almost flagrant punchiness, the very sort of thing you’d hardly expect to improve with time in the bottle. Drink it young or between two to five years of age, after its full gamut of varietal fruit has developed, but prior to excessive bottle-aged influences.

Louisa Rose is the winemaker responsible for the collection of viogniers presently sold under several of the labels in the Yalumba stable. She believes the grape has enormous potential, especially in the way it works with food. ‘Viognier matches well with a good range of foods. With its strength of flavour I see it as a variety which will suit Australian culture. It grows so well in different regions and makes great flavours. The limiting step at the moment is the availability of planting material.’

Rose and her team has been making viognier since the mid-1980s and even now admit they’re still learning about it. Viognier requires more interventionist handling in the winery than does riesling, but not as much as top-shelf chardonnay. ‘We started making viognier with no real idea at all and have made every style from lots of oak to no oak’, she says. ‘New oak has no place with viognier for it just clashes with the grape’s rich flavours, although a lot of Californian makers might disagree. The real thing we’ve learned for our style is that fruit must be ripe in flavour, or else there’s not much point in persevering. It’s hard work to get the vines in balance, for it crops very erratically. There’s either a big crop or no crop. We’re trying to get more reliable lower crops around 3 to 3.5 tonnes per acre where we can get better flavours. Viognier needs some fruit exposure and an open canopy.

‘We pick viognier as gently as possible. The skins are very soft and we don’t want any phenolic extract, since it clashes with the style like oak does. It’s pressed gently and isn’t crushed. It’s passively oxidated since it makes some contribution to the wine’s stability and is fermented either in older barrels or in tank. We generally ferment around 12-16 degrees, but may get to 18-19 in barrels. The wine is kept on lees in oak or tank for around six months to keep the richness in the wine and we don’t go to a lot of effort to stir it. Around 20-25 goes through malolactic, then we bottle after stabilising.’
So that’s how it’s done. Taste the wines in the Yalumba Growers Range, the Heggies Vineyard, the premium The Virgilius or even the Noble Pick Botrytis Viognier, and you’ll appreciate just how far Rose has come. At Yalumba they refer to The Virgilius as a Super-Viognier, and why not? It’s been given the sort of heavy treatment usually reserved for chardonnay including fermentation in small French oak, partial malolactic fermentation and nine months of maturation in oak on lees. But while the Heggies Vineyard Viognier stakes a fair claim to be the best and most consistent yet made in Australia, other names to look for are Clonakilla Canberra, The Heathcote Winery Heathcote, Petaluma Adelaide Hills and Elgee Park, the Mornington Peninsula vineyard which has been making some very good viognier since the mid 1980s.

And what should you pay? The best of these wines now command prices around $35.

Gary Farr, one of Australia’s leading small winemakers, has released a new label featuring a first-rate Viognier. Farr has long been associated with the premium small winery of Bannockburn in the Geelong region, and his new brand, Bannockburn by Farr, is entirely made at Bannockburn from fruit grown within Farr’s own vineyard within the bounds of the Bannockburn property itself. The Viognier is partnered by a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir and a Shiraz, and in my opinion is the best of the range, each of which sell for around $40.

It’s a very spicy and exotic expression of viognier, with typically musky and perfume of rose oil and lemon blossom. There’s all the juicy punch and texture that viognier can offer, with a crafty accent on its bright, spicy fruit before a lingering, dry and savoury finish. There’s no doubt in my mind that this wine would make a more than able partner for Vietnamese and Thai food, or else simply chill and enjoy between meals over summer. Please login to post comment