This week marked a completely new wine for me. It was time for a Viognier. The first thing I wanted to know about it was how to pronounce it. No one wants to sound silly or like they don’t know what they’re talking about, so a quick search produced the pronunciation “Vee-yoh-N’YAY” and this made me feel a little more confident before diving into my tasting.
The grapes for this Viognier were produced in a most interesting sounding place. Piekenierskloof. I knew my research had to start there with a name like that! Piekenierskloof is a ward in the Western Cape of South Africa. It is nestled in a valley between two mountain ranges with the namesake river running through it. Besides being a place for vineyards, Piekenierskloof is also known for growing citrus, olives, and tea.*
Now, on to Viognier. Viognier is a white wine grape that can sometimes produce a slightly green-colored wine. It is usually characterized by its stone fruit flavors and it’s herbal scents. Viognier is a particularly difficult grape to grow, as it requires lots of sunlight and generally needs a late harvest in order to find the right balance of acidity and sugar.*
This wine was from Piekenierskloof, South Africa, and sampled on September 6, 2017. Right off the bat, I could smell white pepper and apple wafting from the glass to my nose. I was listening to “Green Light” by Lorde, which gave me a chuckle, since this wine was definitely tinged with green coloring. The first taste was very interesting. I instantly thought of flat 7-UP. It was very surprising. The more I drank, the more absent the taste became. It was getting very close to like drinking water. It was the low acidity that contributed to this. By the end of the glass, I had decided that it was like water sprinkled with a few drops of lemon and lime and maybe a tiny splash of tonic.
I gave this wine a rating of 3.0. It was not amazing by any means, but it was very interesting and I would love having friends try it and see their reactions.
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