There are many factors that contribute to the flavour of a wine, including the winemaking process, but the single most important is the grape variety. Our Taste the Grape Half Dozen offers the opportunity to sample five different styles from across the world, all made from the same grape variety, providing insight into its unique character and versatility.

VIOGNIER AROUND THE WORLD

When it’s good, Viognier is a peach-scented, round, rich white with a succulent edge and a nuttiness that gets more pronounced with age. This is an ancient variety believed to have originated in Dalmatia (present-day Croatia). It was brought to the Rhône Valley, its spiritual home, by the Romans. By the late 1960s, it was very rare, almost extinct, in the Rhône, mostly on the granite slopes at Château Grillet but since then, it has undergone a renaissance and is now planted in many wine-producing countries around the world.