Rhone Whites

Although New World wines are often known for single varietal presses, Old World vineyards often focus on blends created from local vines and showcasing the desired acidity, sweetness, or complexity of their region.  These blended wines offer a layering of flavors and characteristics that also provide winemakers with the stability offered by using several varietals.

In most of France, vintners blend local grapes for their wines. In Bordeaux, the western French region where Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot predominate, blending is a common practice. In the Rhone region, especially its Southern half, blending varietals has become an art.

Viognier is the lush, honeyed, peach-filled grape that makes up the elixirs of Condrieu in the northern Rhone.  Moving south from Condrieu, the grape gives up space to two other white wine grapes, Marsanne and Roussanne.

Easier to grow, Marsanne is the more popular of the pair. Its broad, beeswax texture and honeydew flavors are delicious on their own, and also provide an excellent backdrop for the headier flavors of Roussanne, a grape that gives deep golden juice filled with aromas of straw, honey, apricots, flowers, and spice. These complimentary flavor profiles make these perfect grapes for blending.

These rich white wines from France’s Rhone Valley make up only fivepercent of the region’s wine production.  However, their smooth drinkability and notes of almond and floral make them worth searching out.  Look for Cotes du Rhone, Crozes-Hermitage, Hermitage, St. Joseph, and St. Peray on the labels. 

St. Peray is the only one of these four appellations that devotes all of its land to white wines; the other four grow more red grapes. While the whites are harder to find, they are well worth seeking out. Cotes du Rhone and St. Peray tend to offer the lightest wines, pale whites filled with delicate peach and floral scents that make great starter wines and easy summertime options. The white wines of Crozes-Hermitage and St. Joseph are richer, but, like the reds from those regions, they vary widely in concentration and quality. Generally, the most affordable choices are simple wines with light honey, almond, and peach flavors; any over $20 pack more flavor into a richer texture.

The most esteemed (and the most expensive, beginning at $35 and soaring far higher) white Rhone wines are the few whites produced from the Hermitage region. These can be monumental white wines, the sort that would overwhelm a typical white wine-friendly fish dish. With lots of alcohol and lots of extract, their rich, weighty textures and intense flavors are more fitting for chicken, veal, or even a decade in the cellar.

A strange thing happens with aging these wines, though: As they age, they tend to go through a "dumb" phase at two to five years where they'll taste bland, oily, and unimpressive, before emerging sheathed in golden flavors of fruit, nuts, and spice. So if you splurge on a bottle of white Hermitage, drink it now or wait seven plus years. Otherwise, you might wonder what the excitement and price are about.

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