Throughout its history, Yalumba has been willing to take a risk and back its judgement on a new variety, a new style, or a new direction, without losing sight of traditional strengths. Nowhere is this more evident than in the winery's pioneering work in Australia with the rare and alluring Rhône grape variety, Viognier. Yalumba has pioneered the development of Viognier in Australia and began the first commercial planting of the variety here in 1980. Yalumba's pre-eminent white wine, The Yalumba Y Series Viognier is the culmination of 20 years of work with this demanding Rhône variety.
Exotic, luscious, seductive, full-flavoured, musk, spice, apricots, peaches, citrus blossoms, lychees, mysterious and alluring - these are some of the enticing descriptors that the rare Viognier wines attract. It was on a visit to Condrieu, the home of Viognier in France's Rhône Valley, that Yalumba's Peter Wall first encountered Viognier. Once grown extensively south of Lyon, Viognier is now virtually confined to the tiny Condrieu and Côte Rôtie regions, with the best wines form Château-Grillet, a tiny appellation of Condrieu.
In 1979, Yalumba planted 1.2 hectares of Viognier in the Barossa - Australia's first commercial Viognier plantings. The Viognier grew quietly for 10 years, allowing the vines time to form regular cropping patterns and giving Yalumba a 'breaking-in' period to experiment with the variety. Today, Yalumba has the largest mature Viognier resource and the oldest commercial vines in the Southern Hemisphere. And the winery now has access to around 29 ha of Viognier from a range of viticultural regions.
"Viognier is incredibly challenging and demands handling with kid gloves," says Yalumba winemaker, Louisa Rose. "It's unpredictable, difficult to grow and the yields are low. The variety always has the ability to surprise you - one day the grapes on the vine are dull and flavourless yet the very next day there'll be the explosion of musky apricot characters that make it so appealing."
Yalumba makes four Viognier white wines - the fresh and citrusy Y Series Viognier (export only), the Eden Valley Viognier, which is made in an 'up-front' style in terms of fruit flavour, with immediate varietal expression for early drinking. 'The Virgilius' is Yalumba's 'super-Viognier', a benchmark wine made using grapes from the older vines with the ability to benefit from bottle maturation. Yalumba
