Domaine François Merlin Condrieu Terroirs, Condrieu, Rhône, France 2020 (£48, robersonwine.com) I think of condrieu as a luxury wine, and I’d be lying if I said price didn’t come into that characterisation: it’s very hard to find examples of this Rhône Valley white for less than £30, and many far exceed that, which means it’s strictly special-occasion stuff. Still, it isn’t just the price tag that makes a good bottle of condrieu feel particularly pampering. For a dry wine, it is lavishly full-bodied: plump and silky-textured, creamy and extravagantly aromatic, a full-on sensory experience. At its worst, all those features combine into something de trop: too much ripe apricot, too much honeysuckle, too overbearing. It becomes decadent and foppish rather than merely indulgent. At its best, however, those qualities are slightly, if not entirely restrained. There is detail and freshness and a kind of buoyancy, as there is in Domaine François Merlin’s captivating example which has a rippling, flowing feel, a spring-fresh current driving all the perfectly ripe apricot and fragrant peach blossom.
Muret Viognier, IGP Pays d’Oc, France 2021 (from £11.96, collectivino.com; winefreedom.co.uk) Condrieu’s price and specialness is also explained by its relative rarity: it’s a small appellation of 200 hectares of vineyards in the Northern Rhône Valley, a part of the world much better known for its earthy, savoury, peppery red wines from syrah. That the vines are tended for the most part by small producers, and are grown on hillsides, neither of which lend themselves to cost-cutting, is another factor that prevents it ever becoming everyday drinking. One of the Rhône’s biggest names, Guigal, makes a consistently good version at a reasonable-for-the-area £34.99 (2019 vintage, Waitrose). Another way of accessing the voluptuous pleasures of Condrieu at a more affordable price is to try something made from the same grape, viognier, from a less prestigious appellation. That might be in the Rhône Valley itself (the succulent Les Vins de Viennes Viognier IGP Collines Rhodaniennes 2021; £19.50, the goodwineshop.co.uk), or it might one of the many good versions made in the Languedoc-Roussillon (the succulent, frangipane-infused Muret Viognier).
Yalumba Y Series Viognier, South Australia 2021 (£8, Tesco, Sainsbury’s) The viognier story is an encouraging one for those who like the idea of varietal diversity, a concept, which is, I suppose, something like wine’s version of biodiversity. On the cusp of extinction in the 1970s, when no more than a handful of hectares were planted (all of them in Condrieu and the neighbouring, tiny Châtea-Grillet appellations), viognier has since been planted to great effect all over the vinous world. I’m not sure if it’s quite as fashionable as it was in the 2000s, when it was sometimes touted as a next big thing for lovers of the rich, ripe chardonnays that were so prominent at the time. But I keep coming across examples of producers who seem to have mastered the balancing act that all good viogniers pull off: impressive without being oppressive. The consistent Y Series, from Australian masters of viognier, Yalumba, is always a good place to start a Viognier voyage, while California’s Andrew Murray Vineyards Santa Barbara County Viognier 2021 (£27.41, corkingwines.co.uk) is beautifully, fluently sensuous.
Follow David Williams on Twitter @Daveydaibach
