Condrieu (From the

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

''coin de ruisseau'' meaning "corner of the

brook A brook is a small river or natural stream of fresh water. It may also refer to: Computing *Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C *Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler * BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programm ...

")K. MacNeil ''The Wine Bible'' pp. 235–240 Workman Publishing 2001 is a

French wine French wine is produced all throughout France, in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. France is one of the largest wine producers in the world, along with Italian, Spanish, and Ame ...

-growing ''

Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée An appellation is a legally defined and protected geographical indication primarily used to identify where the grapes for a wine were grown, although other types of food often have appellations as well. Restrictions other than geographical bo ...

'' (AOC) located in the northern

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

, near

Vienne Vienne (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Viéne'') is a landlocked department in the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It takes its name from the river Vienne. It had a population of 438,435 in 2019.Côte-Rôtie AOC. The vineyards are situated in the seven communes of

Limony Limony () is a commune in the Ardèche department in southern France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the A ...

, Chavanay, Malleval,

Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône (, literally ''Saint-Michel on Rhône'') is a commune in the Loire department in central France. Population See also *Communes of the Loire department The following is a list of the 323 communes of the Loire departmen ...

, Saint-Pierre-de Boeuf, Vérin, and Condrieu. These communes are in the French departments of

Ardèche Ardèche (; oc, Ardecha; frp, Ardecha) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It is named after the river Ardèche and had a population of 328,278 as of 2019.Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

and

Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhôn ...

on the steep slopes of the foothills of the

Massif Central The (; oc, Massís Central, ; literally ''"Central Massif"'') is a highland region in south-central France, consisting of mountains and plateaus. It covers about 15% of mainland France. Subject to volcanism that has subsided in the last 10,00 ...

on the right bank of the

. The four southernmost communes can also produce wine under the

Saint-Joseph AOC Saint-Joseph or St.-Joseph is a French wine ''Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée'' (AOC) in the northern Rhône wine region of France. Though the appellation covers the largest amount of land, it is second in actual size under vine to Crozes-Hermit ...

. The wines made in this AOC are exclusively

white White is the lightness, lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully diffuse reflection, reflect and scattering, scatter all the ...

, from the

Viognier Viognier () is a white wine grape variety. It is the only permitted grape for the French wine Condrieu in the Rhône Valley.J. Robinson ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'' Third Edition pg 754 Oxford University Press 2006 Outside of the Rh ...

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry (botany), berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non-Climacteric (botany), climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of ...

, which may have originated in the region. The smaller AOC of Château-Grillet is

enclave An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...

d within Condrieu and produces wines that are also 100% Viognier. The Condrieu AOC was officially created in 1940.

History

Viticulture Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...

in the area around Condrieu has existed since at least Roman times and it is possible that the area was first cultivated by the native

Allobroges The Allobroges (Gaulish: *''Allobrogis'', 'foreigner, exiled'; grc, Ἀλλοβρίγων, Ἀλλόβριγες) were a Gallic people dwelling in a large territory between the Rhône river and the Alps during the Iron Age and the Roman period. ...

tribe.H. Johnson ''Vintage: The Story of Wine'' pg 89 Simon and Schuster 1989 In the 18th century, Condrieu enjoyed a period of popularity as it gained access to the lucrative

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

ian market. The wine was transported north by land to the city of

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; frp, Sant-Etiève; oc, Sant Estève, ) is a city and the prefecture of the Loire department in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Saint-Étienne is the ...

where the

would carry the wine to the Canal de Briare and then to Paris. During periods of peace between

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

, Condrieu would find its way to the London market.H. Johnson ''Vintage: The Story of Wine'' pg 283 & 299 Simon and Schuster 1989 For most of the 20th century before the early 1970s, the only northern Rhône wine well-known far from the region was Hermitage, and there was little demand on the export market for Rhône wines. Producing wine from hillside vineyards requires more labour than on flat vineyards, and is therefore economically difficult when demand and prices are low. This was particularly felt by some Rhône appellations in the early post-World War II era, including Condrieu and its neighbour Côte-Rôtie, with the 1950s and 1960s a particularly difficult time. Rhône wines in general started to be more in demand from the early 1970s, and stronger so from the late 1970s/early 1980s. From this time, the négociant business of

Marcel Guigal Guigal, formally ''Établissements Guigal'', is a winery and négociant business situated in Ampuis in the southern part of the Rhône region in France. Guigal produces wine from appellations across the Rhône region, but is particularly noted f ...

Ampuis Ampuis () is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France. See also Communes of the Rhône department The following is a list of the 208 communes of the Rhône department of France. This list does not includes the Lyon Metropolis wh ...

helped expand the market for Condrieu wines. Guigal primarily made his name with his Côte-Rôtie wines which then paved the way for his bottlings from other appellations, which also includes a significant portion of white wine. Guigal's Condrieu was sourced from small growers in the appellation. The increase in demand led to new plantations inside the appellation's border, which at the time was far from fully exploited and at one stage included many abandoned vineyards. The area under vine was less than in the 1960s, in 1982, at the end of the century and in 2005.H. Johnson & J. Robinson ''The World Atlas of Wine'' pg 132 Mitchell Beazley Publishing 2005

Climate and geography

As in much of Northern Rhone, the climate of Condrieu is continental and characterized by cold wet winters and hot summers. Ideally situated vineyards are planted on

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies und ...

soils and face south, which aids growth during the cool months of late spring and early autumn. The well-drained granite soil retains heat during the day and reflects it back to the vines at night. In some areas the soil includes a fine layer of decomposed

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Cha ...

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

and

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...

which is known in the region as ''arzelle''.T. Stevenson ''The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia'' pp. 215–216 Dorling Kindersley 2005 The best vineyards have some natural shelter from the fierce northern winds that blow through the region and wreak havoc during flowering. The steep incline of many vineyards exposes them to

soil erosion Soil erosion is the denudation or wearing away of the upper layer of soil. It is a form of soil degradation. This natural process is caused by the dynamic activity of erosive agents, that is, water, ice (glaciers), snow, air (wind), plants, a ...

.J. Robinson (ed) ''The Oxford Companion to Wine'' Third Edition p. 192 Oxford University Press 2006 The Condrieu AOC covers more than 500 acres (202 ha)J. Molesworth '
Vintage Analysis: Northern Rhône 2003 and 2004
"'' Wine Spectator December 06, 2005 of hilly terrain located along a 12 miles (19 km) stretch of the Rhône.E. McCarthy & M. Ewing-Mulligan ''"French Wine for Dummies"'' pp. 132–133 Wiley Publishing 2001 The AOC region begins at the town of Condrieu and extends south along the west bank of the river to the town of Limony. Within the AOC is 8.5 acres (3.4 ha) of Château-Grillet, which has its own micro-appellation.

Wine

The only wine that can be sold under the Condrieu AOC is a white wine made entirely from Viognier. The clone of Viognier grown in Condrieu produces low yields of small berries and is less productive than the clones planted in other regions of France, such as the ''

vin de pays ''Vin de pays'' (, "country wine") was a French wine classification that was above the '' vin de table'' classification, but below the ''appellation d'origine contrôlée'' (AOC) classification and below the former '' vin délimité de qualité ...

'' wine of the neighboring

sweet Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, keto ...

but by the end of the century the trend was to produce mostly dry wines. In particularly favourable

vintage Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product—wine (see Harvest (wine)). A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In cer ...

s, some producers will make a sweet late harvest wine. Condrieu wine is often characterised by delicate aromatics of

peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others (the glossy-skinned, non- ...

es,

dried fruit Dried fruit is fruit from which the majority of the original water content has been removed either naturally, through sun drying, or through the use of specialized dryers or dehydrators. Dried fruit has a long tradition of use dating back to th ...

and white flowers. Some examples also have notes of

anise Anise (; '), also called aniseed or rarely anix is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to Eurasia. The flavor and aroma of its seeds have similarities with some other spices and herbs, such as star anise, fennel, licorice, and t ...

star fruit Carambola, also known as star fruit, is the fruit of ''Averrhoa carambola'', a species of tree native to tropical Southeast Asia. The mildly poisonous fruit is commonly consumed in parts of Brazil, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the South Pacif ...

and

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a " pepo". The ...

s. Often the wine is full bodied and rich in a style that is texturally similarly to

Chardonnay Chardonnay (, , ) is a green-skinned grape variety used in the production of white wine. The variety originated in the Burgundy wine region of eastern France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand. For new ...

. Normally the wine is made dry but the fruitiness and perfume of the bouquet can suggest sweetness. The Viognier grape is naturally low in acidity, which challenges growers and winemakers to keep the wine from becoming flabby and bleak. Some winemakers in the region use malolactic fermentation and some do not. The delicate flavors of the wine can be overwhelmed by too much oak during the

winemaking Winemaking or vinification is the production of wine, starting with the selection of the fruit, its fermentation into alcohol, and the bottling of the finished liquid. The history of wine-making stretches over millennia. The science of wine and ...

process.

Aging

The ability of Condrieu to age is much discussed in the wine industry and opinions differ. Some experts like

Master of Wine Master of Wine (MW) is a qualification (not an academic degree) issued by The Institute of Masters of Wine in the United Kingdom. The MW qualification is generally regarded in the wine industry as one of the highest standards of professional kno ...

Mary Ewing-Mulligan believe that it is best consumed within three years of

harvest Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most lab ...

. '' The Oxford Companion to Wine'' describes Condrieu as one of the few luxury wines that is meant to be consumed young, typically within two to four years. Wine writer Tom Stevenson recommends drinking Condrieu within four to eight years of harvest and notes that its freshness and purity can be lost as the wine ages. James Molesworth of ''

Wine Spectator ''Wine Spectator'' is an American lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine and wine culture, and gives out ratings to certain types of wine. It publishes 15 issues per year with content that includes news, articles, profiles, and general entertai ...

'' notes that some vintages of Condrieu, such as the 2004, will produce more intense, concentrated wines that will age gracefully.

Appellation regulations

The Condrieu AOC can only be used for still white wines made from Viognier. The planting density must be at least 6 500 vines per hectare, and the base yield is 41 hectoliter per hectare. The grape must reach a maturity giving at least 178 g/L sugar in the must (corresponding to 10.5 per cent potential alcohol) and the finished wines must have at least 11.5 per cent alcohol by volume, but no more than 14 per cent after any chaptalisation. If the wine has more than 45 grams per liter of sugar (only applicable for rare sweet Condrieu wines), it must not have been chaptalised to reach that sugar level.Appellation regulations, version of October 28, 2009
on Légifrance

References

Cotes du Rhone Wines Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Condrieu Aoc Rhône wine AOCs 1940s establishments in France