Francois Villard Contours de Deponcins Viognier 2018
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
A young-vine Viognier from two villages known for Condrieu, Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône and Verin. The soil is sandy granite and mica. Fermented and aged in used barrels for eleven months without racking.
Other Vintages
2019-
Wine
Spectator
A cook by training, François Villard developed a passion for wine at the age of 20. Not knowing how to integrate the world of wine, he completed a year of Professional Brevet in sommellerie at Tain l'Hermitage. The meetings were decisive and gave him the desire to become a winegrower. Subsequently, he enrolled in Davayé, with a view to obtaining the Professional Agricultural Certificate, option in viticulture and oenology.
At the same time, he began to acquire his first wasteland in the town of St Michel in the Condrieu appellation. The first vine was planted in the spring of 1989, as soon as it obtained its patent. The first Condrieu was produced in 1991 and the first 400 bottles were released in the fall of 1992.
While his first vinifications took place in Verlieu, in a cellar behind Yves Cuilleron's, he decided to build his own building in 1996 in St Michel Sur Rhône. It was also on this date that he embarked on the adventure of reviving the Seyssuel vineyard with his colleagues Yves Cuilleron and Pierre Gaillard.
The estate now has more than 40 hectares of vines, supplemented with a few purchases of grapes and produces around 400,000 bottles a year. All the work in the vineyard is done entirely manually and the estate has been in organic conversation on the Ecocert label since August 2019.
The attention paid to the vines and the care taken to preserve these specific terroirs are constant and accompany the cultivation throughout the year. The harvest is decided plot by plot so that each bunch is harvested with perfect maturity.
Full-figured and charmingly floral, Viognier is one of the most important white grapes of the northern Rhône where it is used both to produce single varietal wines and as an important blending grape. Look for great New World examples from California, Oregon, Washington and cooler parts of Australia. Somm Secret—Viognier plays a surprisingly important role in the red wines of Côte Rôtie in the northern Rhône. About 5% Viognier is typically co-fermented with the Syrah in order to stabilize the color, and as an added benefit, add a subtle perfume.
A small category representing the wines that either fall outside of appellation lines or don’t subscribe to the law and traditions set forth by the French government within certain classified appellations, “Vin De France” is a catch-all that includes some of the most basic French wines as well as those of superior quality. The category includes large production, value-driven wines. It also includes some that were made with a great deal of creativity, diligence and talent by those who desire to make wine outside of governmental restrictions. These used to be called Vin de Table (table wine) but were renamed to compete with other European countries' wines of similar quality.