Incredible Condrieu
Ben on Thursday 11 March
After a week of tastings with our suppliers, during which there was time (in between emptying spittoons, checking the ice and trying to speak Italian) to taste from the many tables, there was one flight of wines which I couldn’t get out of my head: the Condrieu of Yves Cuilleron. Yves is one of this tiny appellations superstars, and yet a more modest, down-to-earth man you would never meet. But the wines he makes are anything but down to earth. The word that kept coming into my head was ‘ethereal’. The funny thing is that usually I give Viognier a fairly wide berth – often it showing too much alcohol, too cloying. But Cuilleron’s wines are, as he says, from the place where Viognier was born (and very nearly died – before cuttings were taken across the world, at one stage there were less than 40 hectares remaining anywhere), and they show none of this fleshy, over the top style. The nearest descriptor I can find is ‘like drinking a feather pillow’!
Truly a sensory experience to savour.