Viognier, Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, and Marsanne : White Rhones in Washington State
Getting bored with Chardonnay? Check out Washington State’s emerging Rhone white varietals.
Working with white Rhone varietals, you can produce a white wine with a cacophony of ripe aromas and flavors. The honey, spice, and citrus of Rhone varietals is a most welcome alternative if you’re growing bored with the butter and mineral flavors of Chardonnay.
Cofermenting with Syrah
Most of the world’s greatest Syrah based wines come from the Northern Rhone and most of those Syrahs are cofermented with white grapes. This has the counter-intuitive effect of stabilizing color and increasing freshness. Here are the legal limits for blending white grapes in Northern Rhone AOC red wines.
Cote-Rotie – Up to 20% Viognier.
Crozes- Hermitage – Up to 20% Marsanne and Roussanne.
Hermitage – Up to 20% Marsanne and Roussanne .
St. Joseph – Up to 10% Marsanne and Roussane.
Take a gander at below our list of currently available Rhône varietals:
Each pail includes five and quarter gallons of grape juice. Product will arrive partially frozen.
Walla Walla Valley, Washington
Brix: 23.1 , pH: 3.47 , TA: 5.0 g/L (full juice panel in photos)
Harvested September 6th, 2023
The Walla Walla Valley straddles southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. Walla Walla translates to “many waters” in reference to the land’s proximity to the Columbia, Snake, and Walla Walla Rivers. Rain is a seldom occurrence here and the area only receives about 15 inches of annual rainfall. Like the rest of the Columbia Valley, the landscapes and soils of Walla Walla were largely shaped by the cataclysmic Missoula Floods which swept through at the end of the last Ice Age. The Walla Walla Silt Soil left behind is a well-drained, sandy loess over Missoula Flood slackwater deposits and fractured basalt.