Condrieu

A tradition, called hypothetical by the specification, says the emperor Probus planted these vines in the third century with cuttings from Dalmatia. Roman wine growing here is better attested by the harvest mosaic from Saint-Romain-en-Gal, about 12 km away. In the seventeenth century the wines reached Paris by way of the Loire. A natural history of the Dauphiné of 1781 names the two grapes of the wines of Vienne, "la Serine et le Vionnier". Phylloxera, the First World War and industry almost ended the vineyard, and with it Viognier: in 1965 about 8 ha remained, "in the region and in the world", from which more than 140 ha were replanted by 2010. The vineyard entered Côtes du Rhône on 19 November 1937. The Condrieu AOC was recognised on 27 April 1940 for Condrieu, Vérin and Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône, and extended in 1967 to Chavanay, Malleval, Saint-Pierre-de-Bœuf and Limony.

About 40 km south of Lyon, between Côte-Rôtie to the north and Saint-Joseph to the south, steep slopes rise sharply above the right bank from the flatter alluvial ground. Most soils are poor, friable sandy clay from weathered magmatic and metamorphic rock, mainly granite, with very local lenses of glacial loess. Because the slopes are steep and the soils unstable, vines trained on stakes stand on narrow terraces called chaillées, held by walls called cheys. The cold, dry Bise is the most frequent wind; it dries the leaves and limits fungal disease, so growers choose sheltered slopes facing south and south-east. Inter Rhône notes that sunny exposures and stone surfaces can make summers hot despite the northerly position, and the specification says the fissured subsoil lets the vine, suited to acid soils, reach water.

In the mid-nineteenth century Condrieu was a sweet wine drunk six months after the harvest. The specification describes today's wine as mostly dry, sometimes off-dry, with rare sweet wines from overripe grapes. It has a golden colour and a nose of very ripe fruit, peach and above all apricot, sometimes violet and white flowers. The palate is powerful, fat and soft without heaviness, held up by freshness and a long finish. The specification places Viognier here at its northern limit, where it yields irregularly but reaches high natural sugar.

Condrieu is reserved for still white wine from Viognier alone. Vines are planted at a minimum of 6,500 per hectare, and the base yield is 41 hl/ha. The area covers Limony in the Ardèche; Chavanay, Malleval, Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône, Saint-Pierre-de-Bœuf and Vérin in the Loire; and Condrieu in the Rhône. Inter Rhône dates a revision of the area to 1986, focused on well-exposed slopes. In 2009 about 150 ha were in production, making about 5,000 hl a year from about 80 estates and merchants.