Comfort Food In A Glass

Viognier is like one of the lost tribes of Israel. For decades, it wandered the deserts of the wine world looking for a land to call its own. In its native home, France’s northern Rhône Valley, it was being ripped out of the ground to near extinction, while other regions exchanged what little viognier they had for chardonnay or cabernet sauvignon vines. By the mid-1980s, viognier seemed destined to be an historical footnote.

What saved viognier? Not much more than faith. “I think if you look at the explosion of the California wine industry back in the ’70s, chardonnay just shot through the roof,” says David Hopkins, winemaker for Bridlewood Estate Winery of Santa Ynez, near Santa Barbara California. “A lot of things fell by the side. Viognier just got lost in the focus on chardonnay.”

Chardonnay remains king of the white wine realm in the United States. Americans consumed 61.4 million cases of chardonnay in 2007, according to Gomberg, Fredrickson & Associates, a wine industry research company. Viognier still gets bunched in the “others” white wine category, but increasingly it has proved an excellent alternative for wine drinkers willing to venture out beyond chardonnay’s shadow. Bridlewood, for example, made 2,000 cases of viognier in 2000 and 4,000 cases in 2004. A testament to viognier’s surging popularity, later this year the winery will release 20,000 cases of its 2008 vintage.

“What happened in the ’90s was that people got bored with chardonnay,” Hopkins says. “They all started to taste the same. Because of that, the winemakers started to dominate over the flavor of the grape and tried to dial in a house style. When you say the word chardonnay these days, people think barrel-fermented, toastiness of the wood [barrels] and flavors of vanilla, oak and buttered popcorn, instead of the grape’s true nature of green apple and pear.”

Hopkins describes viognier’s style as “leaner and cleaner” than chardonnay. “Everyone loves peaches and viognier has lots of peaches. You smell flowers and it has that honeysuckle nectar character…. It reminds you of summer evenings.” To that he adds guava, pineapple, coconut and apricot. “For lack of a better term, it is like comfort food in a glass.”

Through the patience and hard work of Hopkins and winemakers worldwide, who believe in many of the varieties found in the Rhône Valley, viognier’s future seems secure. For this report, I tasted 18 viogniers from California, Australia, France and our own state of Georgia. The news is mostly good. Although I could not put my finger on a dominant style—some where brisk and acidic, some where chalky and a bit oily—nearly all the wines rated two thumbs up or better.

Still, Hopkins would tell you it is an uphill battle to get people to try a white wine other than chardonnay.

“The last time I was at a tasting in the Texas Hill Country, I had this woman come up to me to ask if she could try my chardonnay,” recalls Hopkins. “I said ‘I don’t make a chardonnay, but I make a viognier.’ She screwed up her face and said, ‘No, thank you.’” Hopkins somehow charmed her into smelling his wine. “The expression on her face still makes me chuckle. She called over to her friends and said: ‘You have got to try this!’ If I can get [viognier] in their glass, I’ve converted another chard drinker.”

Viognier may never supplant chardonnay, but it may have found the Promised Land: a permanent home on our dinner tables.

2007 Yalumba, The Y Series, Viognier, South Australia

• $13

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• Gorgeous aromas of raw honey, apricot and lovely floral quality. Lots of flavors of apricot, peach, and an earthy green tea note with chalky, mineral qualities. It finishes with a little white pepper spiciness. Not bad for $13.

2007 Bridlewood Estate Winery, Reserve,
Viognier, Central Coast, Calif.

• $24

• Two Thumbs Up

• Intriguing aromas of tangerine, blood orange and key lime. Very concentrated, dense and complex flavors of apricot, banana, nutmeg, cinnamon, rose water, honey and almond paste. Nicely spicy at the end.

2007 Bonterra Vineyards Viognier,
Mendocino/Lake counties, Calif.

• $18

• Two Thumbs Up

• A grand array of aromas: peach, tangerine, honey comb and lime. Flavors of peach, lime, lemon, green apple and nicely spicy, white pepper. This wine is perfectly weighted with just enough oiliness to make it “right.”