Product information

Château Grillet Côtes du Rhône Blanc 2017

Viognier from Château Grillet, Condrieu, Northern Rhône, Rhône Valley, France

$176

$169ea in any 3+
$162ea in any 6+
Closure: Cork
The perfume alone is enough to make your heart race!

Description

Château Grillet (pronounced Gree-yay) makes one of the world’s most sublime white wines from Viognier. It’s price is heading into the stratosphere. I loved playing with the Viognier at Yarra Yering, may have been from Grillet cuttings, may not ….. and was fortunate to drink my fair share of Grillet. For years there was never enough Viognier at YY to make an individual white wine. It was always co-fermented with Shiraz to make the Dry Red No.2. Finally, when there was finally enough to make 200L, a pièce, we got to experience something incredible!

Grillet’ Côtes du Rhône is the 2nd Label to Château Grillet. 100% Viognier from the same Château Grillet AOC it offers a taste of Grillet at a fraction of the price.

The perfume alone is enough to make your heart race. Ripe, fresh apricot, marzipan, and baking spice are at play. Jasmine and a little citrus pith too.

The perfume carries through to the palate. The texture the defining factor. Here it is nicely poised between the luscious every so slightly oily phenolics (a textural compound from the skins, think a small tannin) that are a trademark of Viognier, lovely acid, and the apricot kernel, silvery line of graceful bitterness that brings the wine together on the finish.

The lightest layer of Crème Patissierre adding another edge of interest. So fresh and energetic.

 

Out of stock

Check out all of the wines by Château Grillet

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

From the Château

From the 2011 vintage, the technical team decided on an even stricter selection for the wines going into the Château-Grillet blend. Analysis and comparative tasting of the different parcels showed that certain wines have not yet achieved the high level required for Château-Grillet. Nevertheless, this has allowed us to create an excellent Côtes-du-Rhône, made entirely from Viognier, which has much to offer with very good fruit and plenty of charm. This wine has simply been named “Côtes-du-Rhône”, like the appellation it belongs to.

The elegant fruity freshness of the Côtes-du-Rhône of Château Grillet can be appreciated in its youth, the perfect accompaniment for jellied ham with parsley, seared bass fillet, a salad of grilled vegetables marinated in olive oil, or even a platter of sushi and sashimi.

Minerality, tightness, elegance . . .


About Château Grillet

Purchased by the Pinault family in 2011 and managed by Frédéric Engerer (who also looks after the family’s other viticultural interests—Château Latour, Clos de Tart, Domaine Eugenie, Eisele Vineyard), the quality here is still on the upswing. Korean winemaker Jaeok Cramette arrived at the property in March of this year, having moved down from Domaine Eugenie in the Côte de Nuits. She previously worked for an importer in South Korea but came to France in 2008 to pursue a winemaking degree and stayed in Burgundy afterward. Despite being a recent arrival, she was conversant with all the vineyard plots, saying of the property’s four hectares, “I feel like I’m doing gardening, not viticulture.” This minuscule estate recently added an adjacent parcel of Condrieu, so going forward there will be three wines released each year.

Château-Grillet has a rich history, illustrating perfectly the passion and devotion of many generations of men and women for this exceptional terroir.

The vineyards of Condrieu and Château-Grillet were planted by the emperor Probus in the 3rd century AD, from plants brought from Dalmatia. Numerous mosaics preserved at the archaeological site in Saint-Roman-en-Gal (around 12km away) confirm its origins and one of them shows a harvest scene including grape crushing. The early development of the vineyards in this region is probably linked to the Pax Romana. This allowed the ancient Gallic tribe the Allobroges, whose territory included part of the right bank of the Rhône facing Vienne, to acquire Roman citizenship and therefore have the right to plant vines.

In the Vineyard

Just 3.5 hectares in the heart of the northern Rhône valley . . .

Château-Grillet is located between the villages of Vérin and Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône (Loire department), on the right bank of the Rhône to the south of the town of Vienne. Since 1936 this real jewel of Nature has been one of the smallest and most prestigious French appellations producing a single white wine, one of the greatest.

The vineyard of Château-Grillet is in the form of a southern-facing amphitheatre, enjoying an exceptionally hot and sunny microclimate, protected from the winds from the north. The name “Grillet” may refer to hillsides “grilled” or burnt by the sun. The vines have an average age of 45 years and are planted on sometimes breathtakingly steep slopes. They are at 150-250 metres above sea level and spread over 87 marvellous terraces, called “chaillées”, held up by dry stone walls which have been meticulously maintained and preserved over the centuries. Ever since the Roman times, the hand of man has been required continuously to maintain these terraces, giving a sense of purpose and identity to this magical place with its mind-blowing beauty.

Since the change of ownership in 2011, priority has been given by the team to doing everything necessary to glorify this unique viticultural heritage and to better understand the complexities of each parcel. Magnificent but demanding, the vineyard requires meticulous attention and a lot of patience.

The estate is managed by Frédéric Engerer, who is also in charge of the other Artémis Domaines estates: Château Latour in Pauillac, Château Siaurac in Lalande-de-Pomerol, Château Vray Croix de Gay in Pomerol, Château Le Prieuré in Saint-Emilion (Grand Cru Classé), Domaine d’Eugénie in Burgundy and Eisele Vineyard in the Napa Valley, USA. Day-to-day operations are overseen by winemaker Alessandro Noli, with the help of two skilful vineyard workers.

Understanding the complexity and diversity of all the different vineyard parcels is a fascinating task. Getting the best out of this veritable jewel of a vineyard requires humility, patience and also work, a lot of work. All the vineyard work is done manually, in the search of precision but also because some of the terraces are so narrow that only man can work them. Each year all the terraces need to be inspected carefully, to look after the stone walls which wear away over time.

In the Winery

The unique style of Château-Grillet derives from careful vinification techniques, respecting the greatness of the terroir. A fascinating adventure.

 

After the harvest, each selection of vineyard parcels is pressed separately. Pressing is gentle and respects the grapes. This is a crucial step which requires continued oversight and a lot of precision. A new tank room was installed before the 2012 vintage, with small stainless-steel, temperature-controlled tanks. This has given the team the chance to be able to vinify each different selection separately and with precision. The alcoholic and malolactic fermentations take place in tank or in barrel, according to the lot.

Ageing for 18 months takes place in French oak barrels, with a low proportion of new oak, around 20%.

About Viognier

In Australia, as in Côte-Rôtie, we tend to see Viognier in blends co-fermented with Shiraz where it adds wonderful perfume, and texture to red wines like Yarray Yering’s Dry Red No.2,  Clonakilla’s, and, Serrat’s Shiraz Viognier.

As a white wine, the spectrum of styles it can make is extreme. Guigal makes two of the boldest version with the Cuvées ‘La Doriane’ and the incredibly rare dessert wine ‘Luminescence’. La Doriane breaks all the rules. I used 20ml of a bottle to analyse it.

The pH was 4.0 the titratable acidity 4.0. Normally you’d expect a white wine to have a pH 3.0 & 3.5 with a titratable acidity between 5.5-7g/L acid. This is where the extremes of texture comes out to play, the high pH and low acidity combined with the high level of phenolics in La Doriane give it an oily, almost unctuous,  yet still dry texture. The high pH renders any sulphur additions near useless, the fruit must have incredible depth and length of flavour, capacity to handle oxygen contact not to oxidise. It results in a wine so unique that it becomes, perhaps one of the easiest wines to name in a blind tasting.

Guigal have made a very specific set of winemaking choices.

At the other end of the spectrum, it’s possible to make a gently pressed, tank-fermented version that has fewer phenolics from the skins and returns higher acidity and freshness.

Then there’s everything in between.

One thing is certain, good Viognier will have an entrancing perfume, and, a wonderful texture!

Look out for Château Grillet, Goreges Vernay, Yves Cuilleron, André Perret and Guigal.

Where in the World is Château Grillet?

Château Grillet is the smallest AOC in France, owned by only one Domaine of its namesake. It is in the Northern Rhône within Condrieu.

Click to enlarge🔎

 

93 Points

The 2017 Cotes du Rhone Blanc displays a sense of restraint allied to great richness, making for a wine that's intense and powerful without being at all heavy. Pencil shavings accent apricot and melon fruit in this full-bodied yet beautifully balanced offering.

Joe Czerwinski, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Where in the world does the magic happen?

Château Grillet, Vérin, France

Château Grillet
Condrieu
Northern Rhône
Rhône Valley
France