This is a blend we are seeing more and more of these days. We have also seen a lot of straight Viognier in our bottle shops, which is a new white wine. This may seem to be strange, a blend of red and white wines. The blend has emerged from a historical wine style from the Rhone in the South of France and has been taken up in quite a few Australian Shiraz regions.

A lot of these Australian wines simply add the small amount of the finished Viognier wine to the Shiraz to fill the middle palate of the red with some of the lovely richness of the Viognier. This all happens in the winery after the wines have been fermented. This method will slightly reduce the depth of colour in the finished wine.

The original method of making these wines in the Rhone was to “co-ferment” the grapes. The grapes were picked at the same time and mixed before they were fermented. They may have even been grown together in the same vineyard. This created a strange outcome. The resultant wine is even darker than the wine that was only Shiraz. It seems that the white Viognier grape delivers something to the ferment that brings even more colour out of the red Shiraz whilst still softening up the palate. Some of the new Australian wines use this method. So ask the question next time you see one of these wines, were they co-fermented? and see the winemaker prick up his interest meter and take you much more seriously.