Starlite
Viognier
2007
14.5% alc.
Sonoma County, Calif.
I recently noticed that many small Manhattan wine shops whose emphasis isn’t particularly Californian, or even New World, have been carrying a wine from the Alexander Valley AVA of Sonoma County: the 2007 Starlite Viognier. Starlite is a small, family-run winery, better known for its Zinfandels (as is the AVA in which it sits). Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not crazy for viognier as a bottled varietal, despite its fashionable Northern Rhone pedigree. The principle virtue of viognier, for me, are the highly perfumed aroma—think Chanel in a glass—and the fact that it’s best drunk two to four years after bottling. No need to age this wine. Viognier is typically very alcoholic, and not inexpensive. It’s cultivated mostly in limited quantities in small, expensive, agricultural real estate like Condrieu and Cote Rotie in France and in pricey California. All these factors, which in my case produce a serious ambivalence about viogner, nonetheless may account for its modish appeal to both winemakers and consumers alike. A perfect recipe to impress at an utterly fantastic pre-recession cocktail party. It’s the martini of whites.
Now, on to Starlite, which has an unaccountably trite spelling but otherwise stands up quite well for the price. This wine has a deep lemon core with aromas of almond, white nectarine, pear and light flowers. The perfume was more sedate than what you typically encounter in a viognier from the northern Rhone. The wine came dry, initially quite crisp, almost full-bodied, with upfront flavors of lemon skin, peach and pear on the finish. The length was medium. The mouth feel was viscous. The alcohol was high and apparent, but not to such a degree in either case as to deprive the wine of essential harmony. It was quite delicious, actually, though its pleasures were immediate and with no surprises. This is not what you’d call a wine of discovery: Rather, you should expect to hear a friendly, assertive knock on the door and open it to find a beaming deliveryman thrusting forth a package. It’s a COD wine. I had it with monkfish stew with pine nuts. And Fontina cheese afterward. Where a good bottle of Condrieu will set you back $60 to $70, $38 is a good value when you want to put on the ritz. 10/5/09.
