Condrieu’s comeback
Georges Vernay’s Coteau de Vernon. Photograph: Christine Vernay
When I first got into wine, I remember being bowled over by the whites of the Rhône. These wines were like nothing else I’d tasted: textural, rich, weighty and about as far as you could get from the Pinot Grigio or cheap Savvy B I’d otherwise been exposed to. Hermitage Blanc might have been the sophisticated favourite, but Condrieu – unabashed about its opulence, glamorous, pungent and heady – was mine.
It’s not cool to like it – people seem desperate to battle its charms. They’ll argue it’s flabby. Fat. Alcoholic. Well, I say to them, there’s room on the vinous runway for much more than size zero 2.9pH Riesling. And, in the best wines, that alcohol is integrated, the wine might be plump but it’s fresh, with a mineral, saline, phenolic edge that grounds it.
I spent some time diving into the history of the appellation – which was on the brink of extinction just 40 years ago – and what defines its very best wines, talking to Emma Ansellem at Domaine Georges Vernay, Philippe Guigal and Maxime Chapoutier.
