Description
Gift Jean-François Jacouton Condrieu 2017 in a one-bottle white wine pack and make any wine lover very happy! Jean-François Jacouton Condrieu is the epitome of the Viognier grape – stone fruit aromas and flavours with a citrus finish which stops the wine being too fruity. This fabulous wine is generally hard to get hold of as it comes from a very small estate with a very well-respected wine maker.
After working for others in the wine world Jean-François Jacouton set up his own winery and vineyard in 2010 with just 6 hectares (for Condrieu and his other wines). The land, typically for Northern Rhône, is steep and terraced and so all the vineyard work has to be done by hand. Passionate about his terroir Jean François’s aim is to make precise wines: Viognier is notoriously difficult to grow well – and has a tendency particularly in warm climate areas to be a bit OTT with exotic fruit flavours and low acidity. But Jean François makes sure he picks the grapes at their optimal ripeness and before acidity falls too low so that there is a zippy citrussy edge to cut through the juicy stone fruit flavours.
This wine, the perfect white wine gift, certainly ticks all the boxes of a top Condrieu: a very elegant Rhône white wine with fairly restrained peach & apricot flavours with some stony minerality and crisp citrus on the finish; a medium body and the most amazing smooth texture. It’s almost oily but without the wine tasting very rich as the acidity keeps it very fresh. I disagree with my wine hero, Jancis Robinson, below: the finish is really quite long but I have had the advantage of tasting this wine more recently and it has developed beautifully since 2018. I think this might be my new favourite white!
Note: the price of this one-bottle gift pack includes Postage and Packaging. If you would like to add some bottles of a similar wine from the same producer to a mixed case, please check out this Viognier.