Viognier
One of the finest, rarest French whites; usually full-bodied, honeysuckle-apricot-musky and lanolin-textured, so fruity/floral it seems sweet even when bone-dry.
About the grape
Viognier is one of the finest but rarest French white grapes — it nearly went extinct in the 1960s before becoming fashionable in California and Languedoc-Roussillon, and fewer than 300 acres remain in its home, the northern Rhône. There it makes the prestigious wines Condrieu and Château-Grillet, and a little is co-fermented with syrah in Côte-Rôtie. Viognier is usually a full-bodied wine with honeysuckle, apricot, gingerbread, and musky aromas and flavors and a mesmerizing lanolin-ish texture; like gewürztraminer its extroverted fruity/floral aromas fool many drinkers into thinking it is a little sweet even when it's bone-dry. In California it often suffers from too little acidity to give it definition. It is also well known in Australia.
