Is Viogner Temecula Valley’s destiny?

I have lived in Temecula for close to five years now, and when I first arrived, the wineries were growing everything and anything under the sun. Quality was all over the map, and I had more misses than enjoyable bottles.

Fast forward five years, quality is finally becoming an issue, and part of that is planting grapes that perform well in our hot environment. Yes I realize we have a very large diurnal temperature range…but at 1:00pm standing in the field at 110 degrees…I am thinking that cool climate grapes are not in their ideal environment.

At any rate, the Rhone and Southern Italian wines are starting to show great promise in the valley and are much better suited to this environment than their cold viticulture counterparts. The one variety I have been keeping my eye on is Viogner.

A few years back, the few samples of Viogner I had in the valley were flabby and flat, but with enough structure that you could tell that once there was some more viticulture and cellar experience that this was going to be a good wine.

This year I have tasted most of the offerings in the valley, granted not a huge number are producing Viogner yet, however the experience is starting to show. If winegrowers could ever choose a white to rally around and specialize in, this is the one.

Looking forward to next years releases.