VIDEO CONTENTS INDEX:
00:00 – A BIT ABOUT THE HANDRINKSSOLO WINE CHANNEL
00:43 – A BRIEF TOUCH ON ELGIN’S WINE HISTORY
02:47 – A BIT ABOUT ELGIN GEOGRAPHY
04:39 – SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VIOGNIER CULTIVAR
05:05 – WHAT DOES IT SMELL LIKE?
05:27 – WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE?
06:21 – DRINK THIS OVER FOUR DAYS!
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The beauty of partnership
Cates & Hammond. Riggs & Murtaugh. Gamble & Hoitz. Turner & Hooch. All the best buddy cop flicks pair a slouchy, emotional, explosive-but-sincere character with a partner who is tight, slightly austere, anally-retentive but unfailingly upright. And while they aren’t out fighting crime, “Viognier” and “Elgin” certainly make the world a better place. The altitude, cool climate, and regular cloud banks that roll through this valley provide exactly the sort of cool, restrained environment for an emotional, explosive and sometimes slouchy cultivar like Viognier.
Similarly, the Fledge & Co. husband-&-wife winemaking team of Leon Coetzee and Margaux Nel are themselves such a pairing of contrasting characters, and the end result of Nel + Coetzee + Viognier + Elgin make for an enormously exciting wine that carries the lovely (albeit sometimes blousy) fruit-flower-nut trifecta of Viognier combined with all the restrained, limey, elegant, textured structure that is Elgin Wine. And given Elgin’s similarity to Condrieu in both altitude and soil type, it’s not wonder the end result is so convincing. For those of you who don’t have a bottle handy, here are the tasting notes.
Tasting notes
👃🏼 A moderate nose of naartjie sherbet, white nectarine, almond skins, apricots, white pear, herbal tea, and lemon blossom.
👄 The mouthfeel is that glorious bitter-sweet mix that the best Viognier’s so often exhibit. The sweetness comes in the form of the usual stone fruit references, and the bitterness comes from a sort of almondy nuttiness (although it’s more like an apricot kernel than an almond).
But what this wine has that many South African Viogniers don’t possess is a supremely elegant acidity; seams of lime fruit, tart apricot and lovely bitter white grapefruit lift the whole production to an entirely different plane.
The finish is manages to be pithy and dry, while still carrying juicy white citrus that leads the drinker into the next sip.
