Tucked away in a hard-to-find corner of my cellar is a handful of the wines from E. Guigal. The family-owned operation, although only established in 1946, boasts a significant international reputation thanks to meticulous winemaking and, in part, to being championed by American wine writer Robert Parker.
Guigal is probably the most famous of France's Northern Rhone producers and offers a range of white and red wines that are keenly sought-after - especially the revered and magnificent Cote Rotie, a red wine that often features as the desert island wine of many a connoisseur.
However, Guigal's whites should not be overlooked and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the world making a better condrieu (or viognier, as we know it).
In keeping with what the Rhone valley does best, the Guigal reds include grapes such as syrah, grenache and mourvedre. Syrah often features on its own and, as often happens in New Zealand, a small dash of viognier is added to ostensibly enhance the brightness of colour and flavour - a practice scorned by some purists.
In the Northern Rhone syrah dominates, with its full-bodied spicy pepper aromas and kirsch, blackcurrant and liquorice flavours, while in the Southern Rhone grenache takes centre stage, with its gutsy, alcoholic swagger and erratic swings between being coarse or majestic with lashings of ripe blackcurrant.
