Viognier

Viognier nearly disappeared. By 1965 there were about eight hectares left in the world, all in Condrieu in the northern Rhône, and the grape survived on the willingness of a handful of growers to keep farming a difficult vine on terraces too steep for machinery. It now has plantings on every wine continent, which is one of the more complete recoveries in modern wine.

It is a low-yielding, disease-prone grape with a narrow picking window. Picked too early it is neutral; picked too late it loses acidity and turns oily and heavy. In the middle it gives apricot, peach, honeysuckle and violet, with a full body, a soft texture and a distinctly perfumed nose. It has naturally low acidity, which is why so much viognier tastes flabby and why the good ones stand out clearly.

Condrieu and Château-Grillet remain the reference. In Côte-Rôtie a small proportion of viognier is legally permitted in the red syrah wine, co-fermented, where it stabilises colour and adds aromatic lift, a practice now copied in Australia and California. Elsewhere it is grown in the Languedoc, in Virginia, where it is effectively the state grape, and in Australia's Eden Valley.