Video Transcript: The Taste of California Viognier
Written By: Anonymous on Thu, Feb 21st 2008
Brian Freedman: Welcome to the Classic Wines Showdown brought to you by Classicwines.com. I am your host Brian Freedman and today we are throwing down between two Viogniers from California here at the Wine Room in Cherry Hill.
Now Viognier, it is Northern Rhone varietal, the wine geeks love this stuff, I love this stuff and it seems to me that the flavor profile, the texture in the mouth, this is something that more people would fall in love with, if they just gave it a shot.
So today we have two Viogniers, both from 2006, the first one The Cline Viognier California 2006. So the Cline – now the Cline I will be honest with you, the Cline costs about half as much as the Miner which is not always an indication of the quality of the wine, but in this case let us see if it does have any bearing on it.
So we give the Cline a smell and I am getting -- you know it is Viognier right off the back, there is something a little bit waxy on the nose. Remember those Wax Lips that we all played with as kids and you chew on them and your mom would yell at you do not choke on that, it has that sort of smell.
There is something aromatic maybe like dried apricots, besides that I am not getting a whole lot. Something perhaps vaguely nutty, it is actually not a bad wine. It has good acid to it which helps the Viognier because you need the acid to keep the fruit bright otherwise the aromatics, the perfume could get a bit overwhelming.
Surprisingly, long finish there is some sort like Candied Lemon Peel on there, but aside from that it is not bringing what we need it to, of course maybe that is a California thing.
Let us see what is happening with number two, The Simpson Vineyard, from Miner 2006. Alright, we will give this a swirl, get some air into there. Now to me this is what I am looking for, the nose is richer, it is rounder, it is smells, you are going to think I am nuts, like almond paste, right, kind of like marzipan and apricots and orange blossoms, there is whole word of aroma in here.
There is less acid in this than the Cline, which tells me that I would rather have the Cline with food, I think the acid would really cut through some richness in the food, but I got to tell you the flavor of the Miner is just so much more complex, so much more nuanced. The apricots are -- I am getting like both ripe and dried apricots, there is honeysuckle in there. The marzipan is following through; there is something almost like a hazelnut.
It is a really, really interesting wine and for me I am getting twice the flavor from this, of course its twice the money, but for me when it comes to Viognier, there is some much pleasure to be gotten form this under appreciated grape varietal.
If you have never had if before, spend the extra money, go with the Miner there is nothing wrong with the Cline, but for your first time spend the big bucks, it is only going to be like under a $1,000 which quite frankly I expect that is a steal right there.
Well, winner of this week The Miner, Simpson Vineyard 2006 California Viognier.
From all of us here at Classicwines.com, we would like to thank the Wine Room in Cherry Hill and I am drinking the winner now. Cheers!
