Party with the "V" -- Viognier

Viognier. It just sounds cool.

Of course, you need to know how to say it first. I know I went an embarrassingly long time calling it something like "veeYAWGnyur." (All of the people who heard me do so have been properly paid off or disposed of...) For the record, it's vee-OHN-yay, and dropping the varietal name appropriately immediately raises your wine cred.

So what the heck is it?

Viognier is a white wine grape. Until recently, it was a particularly rare grape. The varietal almost became extinct in the mid 60's. It's enjoyed a resurgence as the general worldwide demand for wine increased and folks wanted something a little different from chardonnay and sauvignon blanc.

France, not surprisingly, is best known for Viognier. Viognier thrives in the northern Rhone. Many Rhone wines, including Rhone reds, contain at least some viognier. As a bonus, part of the chemical composition of Viognier stabilizes the color in red wine; so many winemakers use it in their red blends. Viognier is also grown in Languedoc, where it is usually produced as a vin de pays. (That's French WineSpeak for "the quality level right above table wine.") The U.S. and Australia are growing more and more Viognier, and South America has considerable plantings of the grape already.

On its own, Viognier produces an extremely fragrant, floral wine. These wines vary in style from bone-dry to somewhat sweet but are always extremely aromatic. As a blending grape, adding Viognier tends to act as adding a pinch of salt to some foods -- the aromas of a wine with even a small amount of viognier in the blend become amplified and much more "forward." Viognier is a tricky grape to grow, and it's also tricky to make, so some of them can be quite pricey. Cheap Viognier can often have a bit of an "oily" characteristic -- which is often masked by a winemaker making the wine overly sweet. There are some good ones that are relatively inexpensive, and ask for recommendations if in doubt.

Viognier's aromatic nature makes it a good choice as a food wine to pair with spicy Thai or Vietnamese cuisine. (Many of the same chemicals found in the bouquet of Viognier are also in Riesling.) It also pairs with stinky cheeses, but the Thai option piqued my interest. The Sweet Partner in Crime and I decided that we'd do a side-by-side-by-side with a spicy chicken green curry that we whipped up.

Here's what we were pouring.

Domaine de Mont-Auriol 2006 Languedoc Viognier ($9-11)
Renwood 2006 Lodi Viognier ($7-10)
Alamos 2007 Viognier ($8-12)

(These wines are from France, California, and Argentina respectively...)

The Mont-Auriol started off with a strong nose of flowers, pears, and minerals. It has a slightly alkaline (a bit of that "oily" above) mouthfeel. It was dry and minerally, with a finish that was dry and a little bit smoky. "A Viognier I could drink by the pool," commented the SPinC. As it warmed a bit, the oiliness disappeared from the flavor. It only needed a slight chill.

The Alamos had a softer scent than the French wine. Certainly not minerally, and considerably more fruity. The flavor was much more delicate -- peaches and a little bit of chalky minerality. The finish was light, dry, and minerally. Definitely a lighter wine to drink on its own, and not as interesting.

The Renwood had the strongest scent of the three. Peaches and flowers leap out of the glass. It had a fuller body with a slightly sweeter taste. The mineral taste was the weakest of the three, and the fruit was the strongest. The finish was soft and slightly sweet.

We dished up the curry over some basmati rice and gave the three of them another try. The French wine did not fare well. It became much more pungent, almost unpleasant, with this particular pairing. The Alamos, by contrast, really took off when paired up with the curry. The flavors of both the food and wine became much stronger and more interesting. The Renwood didn't do much at all. It was a decent accompaniment, nothing more.

We also discovered that the French wine had a bit of a "window" in which it was tasty. Too cold, and the flavors get lost and the aroma's not as nice. As the evening went along and it warmed up, it became much, much less palatable. We couldn't say the same with either the Argentinean or American wines, which were flavorful even with only a slight chill.

Viognier certainly isn't a wine for everyone. I know a number of people who simply can't stand the stuff -- the contrast between the scent and the flavor is just too much for them. I personally like it for a change of pace. It's definitely a wine worth trying, if just to contrast it...with just about everything else!


(Personal note -- this column goes out to my old friend Orin, one of the purveyors of DWHoops.com -- one of the best women's basketball fan sites on the net...)

Green Wine

No, no -- not another verse-filled vinho verde column...it's the environment, silly!

I enjoy being greener. Call it "Gore's example" or clean living, or just plain old smart, but I like it. I like looking for everyday ways to trim a little here and there from the ol' carbon footprint. I do what I can. I try to keep the house energy-efficient. I drive less. I recycle more. I try to buy local when I can. I've got a composter (code name: "The Muffin Machine") humming silently, happily away in the backyard.

But what about my other habits? Am I as green as I can be when it comes to this little literary enterprise of mine? Thankfully, wine and winemaking contribute nicely to the "green experience." Winemaking is an exacting process. Vinifera grapes (WineSpeak for "the major grape varietals in wine") tend to be finicky critters, so companies that use huge, soulless mass-production methods, lots of pesticides, automated harvesting, and the like -- the grapes don't respond well and what ends up in the bottle is generally an inferior product.

"Organic" is nothing new in the wine world, nor are environmentally friendly agricultural practice. Regardless of the price of a wine, the care taken as the grapes move from bud to bottle almost always shows through in what winds up in the glass. There's much more to conservation than just being organic, so here are a few bottles I've tried (and recycled) lately that contain a "green tint"

I discovered X Winery 2006 "X3" Cabernet Sauvignon one day at the wine store when I was looking for a cabernet with a Stelvin screwtop, largely because, honestly, I wanted a wine I wouldn't have to fool with all that much when I was ready to drink it. Yes, there are some days I'm too lazy to pick up a corkscrew. This winery is focused on using new technologies, environmentally friendly production techniques, and the growers that they work with are committed to sustainable agriculture -- meaning that they try to do as little harm as possible to the ecosystem while farming. What I didn't realize was that I found a very, very good wine to boot. This wine is their second-line cabernet at around $15. This cab has a big nose of vanilla and blackberries. The body is well-balanced with some smoke and chocolate flavors. Paired with chocolate, you've got a big winner.

Seeing a display for the Yellow Jersey 2007 Pinot Noir surprised me. At first, I thought it was simply a bunch of half-liter bottles with bright yellow labels. I was wrong. The bottles were a full 750 ml, and they were made entirely of plastic. It makes sense that a plastic bottle would be smaller -- they're not going to be as thick as a glass one. The wine itself? Well, it wasn't bad for a $10 pinot. I certainly didn't taste anything significantly different from a glass-container wine. This was honestly a relatively nondescript pinot, meaning that it wouldn't get in the way of most foods, and it wasn't a bad quaff if you just wanted a glass of something without thinking too much. Now. where this wine would come in very handy is any picnic, hike, or somewhere that you'd have to pack it in and out. The bottle itself is 90% lighter than glass, shatterproof, and, of course, recyclable. When the weather's nice, a bottle of this with a cheese and meat board somewhere outside would be delightful. Just make sure that you clean up when you're done.

One of my favorite couplings of environmental improvement and wine quality is box wine. As I've written before, the days of Vella and Franzia are thankfully coming to a close. Companies are starting to package more and better qualities of wine in boxes. Although, as I think about it -- I don't know how much of the box itself can be recycled. The cardboard of the box is obviously recyclable -- but the spigot and the Tetra Pak plastic inside the box...I'm not sure. I did some research and couldn't find anything definitive.

Regardless of the specific container, a single box of wine is a more efficient transport than the four glass (or plastic) bottles of the same amount. The Chateau de Pena 2005 Cuvee de Pena is one of the more interesting wines in a box I've had. This blend of Syrah, Grenache, Carignan and Mourvedre from a cooperative in Roussillon bills itself as "the world's friendliest red wine." I don't know if I'd go quite that far, but it's definitely an affable companion which will nuzzle up to any number of recipes. It's the earthiest box wine I've had. There's even a little bit of that Old World funk on the nose. The finish is dry and a little earthy. I'd call it a "Cotes-du-Rhone Lite" and be happy. A bottle's around $8, but the 3 liter box, my purchase of choice, is around $25.

On an interesting side note, I recently met the parents of Christine the Pie Queen. Her father is a former engineer at Dow who worked on the technology that eventually led to bag-in-a-box wine. He said that the bags are usually several layers of plastic laminate thick. Each layer does something specific, whether preventing oxygen from getting in, esters (those yummy smell molecules) out, protection from pollutants, etc. The innermost is the most important, because it's the one that would impart (or, rather, not impart) flavor to the wine. Hearing the process by which these things are made was nothing less than fascinating.


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