Château-Grillet AOC
Encyclopedia
Château-Grillet is a wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
-growing AOC
Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée
Appellation d’origine contrôlée , which translates as "controlled designation of origin", is the French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products, all under the auspices of the government bureau Institut National...
in the northern Rhône wine region
Rhône (wine region)
The Rhône wine region in Southern France is situated in the Rhône river valley and produces numerous wines under various Appellation d'origine contrôlée designations...
of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, near Vienne
Vienne, Isère
Vienne is a commune in south-eastern France, located south of Lyon, on the Rhône River. It is the second largest city after Grenoble in the Isère department, of which it is a subprefecture. The city's population was of 29,400 as of the 2001 census....
, which produces white wine from Viognier
Viognier
Viognier is a white wine grape. It is the only permitted grape for the French wine Condrieu in the Rhone valley.-History:The origin of the Viognier grape is unknown. Viognier is presumed to be an ancient grape, possibly originating in Dalmatia and then brought to Rhône by the Romans. One legend...
grapes. The whole appellation, which only is 3.8 hectares (9.4 acre) in size, is owned by a single winery
Winery
A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, bottling lines, laboratories, and large expanses of...
, Château-Grillet. The appellation was officially created in 1936.
Château-Grillet AOC is effectively an enclave of the Condrieu
Condrieu AOC
Condrieu is a French wine-growing Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée located in the northern Rhône wine, near Vienne and to the south of the Côte-Rôtie AOC...
appellation, which also produces white Viognier-only wines. These appellations are located just south of Vienne in the northern part of the Rhône
Rhône River
The Rhone is one of the major rivers of Europe, rising in Switzerland and running from there through southeastern France. At Arles, near its mouth on the Mediterranean Sea, the river divides into two branches, known as the Great Rhone and the Little Rhone...
valley. The production of white wine in the Rhône region is relatively small compared to the red wines. Condrieu and Château-Grillet are the only appellations in northern Rhône that are exclusively white wine appellations.
The situation of an AOC (or other official wine designation) owned by a single estate is a situation known as a monopole
Monopole (wine)
A monopole is an area controlled by a single winery and can be as small as a lieu-dit or as large as an entire appellation d'origine contrôlée, such as Bordeaux or Champagne. Frequently this is mentioned on the label and it is rare for only one winery to produce all the wine from an area...
. There are several other monopole estates in France including Romanée-Conti
Romanée-Conti
Romanée-Conti is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot Noir as the sole grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée and is a monopole of the winery Société Civile du Domaine de la...
, La Tâche
La Tâche
La Tâche is a commune in the Charente department in southwestern France.-Population:-References:*...
, La Romanée
La Romanée
La Romanée is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot Noir as the main grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée and is a monopole of the winery Comte Liger-Belair...
, Clos de Tart
Clos de Tart
Clos de Tart is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot Noir as the main grape variety. It is situated in the commune of Morey-Saint-Denis in the Côte-d'Or département...
, and Clos de la Coulée de Serrant. The Neyret-Gachet family acquired the Château-Grillet estate in 1830, and the family retained ownership until the estate was purchased by French billionaire Francois Pinault
François Pinault
François Pinault is a French businessman who runs the retail company PPR. He is a friend of former French President Jacques Chirac....
in 2011. Today, Isabelle Baratin manages the production and sale of the estate's single wine: Vin Blanc de Château-Grillet. Only 10,000 bottles are produced each year. The estate also produces two Brandies: Fine du Château-Grillet and Marc du Château-Grillet. The former is distilled from the Château-Grillet wine while the latter is a pomace brandy
Pomace brandy
Pomace brandy is a liquor distilled from pomace. Examples include the Croatian / Montenegrin / Serbian lozovača , Cypriot zivania, French marc, Georgian chacha, German Tresterbrand, Greek tsipouro, Hungarian törköly, Italian grappa, Bulgarian grozdova, Portuguese aguardente, Romanian rachiu de...
.
The vineyards stretch over two communes: Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône
Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône
Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône is a commune in the Loire department in central France.-References:*...
and Vérin
Vérin
Vérin is a commune in the Loire department in central France....
.
The vines are situated in terraces on steep granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
cliffs surrounding the estate where the soil is lighter and more fragmented than in the Condrieu AOC
Condrieu AOC
Condrieu is a French wine-growing Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée located in the northern Rhône wine, near Vienne and to the south of the Côte-Rôtie AOC...
. The slopes are shaped in the form of a natural amphitheater with south-southeastern sun exposure. The estate's vines average 40 years of age, and as a result produce very low yields.
The slim brown bottles of Château-Grillet are easily recognised and are used by no other French winery. Until 1987, 70 centiliter bottles were used, rather than the 75 cl bottles used since.
Vineyard
Romanée-Conti
Romanée-Conti is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot Noir as the sole grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée and is a monopole of the winery Société Civile du Domaine de la...
, but its neighbour La Romanée
La Romanée
La Romanée is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot Noir as the main grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée and is a monopole of the winery Comte Liger-Belair...
is only of half as large, or 0.85 hectares (2.1 acre).
Wine style
Château-Grillet is by tradition a wine which is intended to be drunk with some maturity, often around 10 years or more from the vintage year. This style has been kept by the appellation's single producer and sets Château-Grillet apart from the Condrieu wines from most producers, or indeed almost all wines produced from Viognier grapes, which are styled to be drunk fairly young and often aims more for opulence.Aromas present in a good vintage Château-Grillet is typically apricot, truffle, and honey on the nose, and apricot, orange and tangerine on the palate. More floral aromas are present on the nose with some aging, typically eight years or more. The fruit aromas associated with Château-Grillet are therefore somewhat different than from those typically found in Condrieu, where pear is often found.
Château-Grillet cellars its wines for at least 24 months in a combination of new and old oak barriques
Wine barrel
The use of oak plays a significant role in winemaking and can have a profound effect on the resulting wine, affecting the color, flavor, tannin profile and texture of the wine. Oak can come into contact with wine in the form of a barrel during the fermentation or aging periods...
.
Appellation regulations
Yield (wine)
In viticulture, the yield is a measure of the amount of grapes or wine that is produced per unit surface of vineyard, and is therefore a type of crop yield...
is 37 hectoliter per hectare. The grape must reach a maturity giving at least 178 g/l sugar in the must (corresponding to 10.5 per cent potential alcohol) and the finished wines must have at least 11.5 per cent alcohol by volume, but no more than 14 per cent after any chaptalisation. The wines must be dry, with a maximum of 4 grams per liter of sugar.