A feisty white from a wine wizard

A lush and silky Californian viognier in which to indulge yourself.

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

2010 Terre Rouge, FiddletownViognier, California (£18, DomaineDirect, 020-7837 1142).

Terre Rouge is located on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada in Amador County's Shenandoah Valley. This is a holistic set-up, farming sustainably and deriving most of its electrical power from solar panels located on the roof of the main winery building.

Winemaker Bill Easton is a wizard with Rhne varietals. His laid-back, natural approach suits the wild characters in this family of grapes, but after tasting two of his meaty, spicy red blends, I didn't expect this sultry white to blow them out of the water.

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I am particularly sceptical about the viognier grape only a handful of estates in the world (outside of its spiritual home in Condrieu, in the northern Rhne) make balanced, alluring examples.

The Fiddletown viognier vines are planted in loamy, decomposed granite soils and this brings incredible aromatic beauty to this wine. Viognier can often err on the lardy side of the track and while this wine is lush, layered, peachy and silky, it is also tangy, feisty and bright on the finish.

It is fully mature, too, but shows no signs of its age. I very rarely drink a glass of a wine that is on my tasting bench and I never drink the whole bottle. Oops.

Matthew Jukes is a winner ofthe International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of theYear (www.matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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