White-red blend presents a challenge in the vineyards

Take one of the fastest upcoming white grapes in New Zealand. Add one of the best-known reds. The result? A big debate in wine circles.

It's the next big thing in white wine trends, so it surprises some wine drinkers to find that viognier often tastes better blended into the red wine syrah. Such practice is standard in parts of the Rhone Valley, France, but it is relatively recent in New Zealand.

Despite its low-key presence, viognier will have doubled in plantings nationwide in the three years between 2003 and 2006 to a new total of about 24 hectares, of which about a quarter belong to the pioneering Te Mata Estate Winery in Hawkes Bay.

Te Mata Estate winemaker Peter Cowley was the first in New Zealand to release commercially viable quantities of a white wine labelled viognier in 1997. Since then the quantities have grown significantly for Te Mata, but it is in the producer's Woodthorpe Syrah/Viognier blend that this grape finds its most exciting expression.

"You have to co-ferment, which makes for a weird- looking setup where you have green grapes floating in a tank with red grapes at the time of fermentation," Cowley says.

"After the fermentation the main difference between straight syrah and the tanks that have both syrah and viognier is that the latter are strongly aromatic. The addition of viognier to syrah seems to make it taste orangey and floral to me."

A handful of Hawkes Bay wine producers are co-fermenting and experimenting with blending viognier into syrah. Australian winemakers also practise it, but with their penchant for treating wines to vast quantities of strong-tasting American oak, the addition of viognier to much syrah (aka shiraz - the same grape by a different name) is often lost on the palate.

The idea of blending finished syrah/shiraz with finished viognier versus co-fermenting the two grapes is a strong debate on the other side of the Tasman, and such debate will become more prevalent here too, predicts Cowley. "We have tried putting finished viognier wine into the final blend of syrah, and it did nothing positive, but it did make the tannins taste drier and mucked up the structure of the red wine."

The first commercial release of a syrah/viognier was 2002 Te Mata Woodthorpe Syrah/Viognier, and 2003 (of which viognier makes up only 2 per cent of the final wine) was released last month for $25 a bottle.

Whether viognier as a white or blended into syrah will take off, Cowley is hesitant to say.

"It's terribly trendy because everybody is trying to get over pinot gris and into viognier, and when you blend it into syrah, it provides something attractive and different."

The grape presents a challenge in the vineyard. It is sensitive, barely producing a crop if the weather is inclement and the vines young. Nearly all the vines in New Zealand are young, although Cowley is now getting 2 tonnes of viognier to the acre rather than the 1 tonne they used to struggle to pick.

Mixing drinks

Q: How do they do it?
A: By blending viognier (white) grapes and syrah (red, aka shiraz) grapes as the wine is fermented.

Q: They don't mix the wines afterwards?
A: Not here, but this method is used in Australia.

Q: What does the red-white blend taste like?
A: Aromatic, floral and "orangey", says winemaker Peter Cowley of Te Mata Estate Winery in Hawkes Bay.

Q: Is this the trendiest thing since pinot gris?
A: Maybe. If it does take off, winemakers are in for some headaches because viognier is notoriously hard to grow here.