Caprice du Chameau 2023 - la Vrille et le Papillon

I first met Géraldine and Méryl via Anders Frederik Steen and Anne Bruun Blauert, when the couple suggested I tasted with their village neighbours during a visit in 2021. Tasting through the cuves and vats with little conversation, the immediate drinking pleasure of their wines was what struck me that day. Since then, their wines have remained firm favourites, offering outstanding value and remarkably gratifying drinking, a forgotten virtue in modern wine. The couple’s unassuming, matter-of-fact sensibilities makes perfect sense, the poetry is all in the bottle, and the almost physical sensuality of their wines so tricky to articulate

The couple live at Méryl's old family cellar in Valvignères, across from the local co-op, which Méryl's father helped establish. Méryl first worked as a stagiaire with the Oustric family, whose influence is reflected in the couple's approach today. He then went on to study agriculture in Dijon and oenology in Montpellier, working in Madiran and the Maconnais before returning home to set out on his own. Géraldine grew up in a winemaking family in Burgundy, training in law before eventually returning to wine, studying viticulture and oenology, after which she took an apprenticeship with Philippe and Catherine Jambon. The pair remain characteristically bashful when the pedigree of their training is mentioned. When returning to Valvignères in 2012, they took over Méryl's family cellar and set about establishing a GAEC, inheriting 2.5 hectares of vines around the village that have since increased to 6, mostly straddling the eastern and western flanks of the valley. The varieties are what you might expect - Syrah, Viognier, Grenache Blanc, and Merlot, and Grenache Noir - and some you might not, such as the Ugni Blanc that goes to their stellar Q blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and a handful of hybrids. As part of transhumance, sheep pass through their vineyards twice per year, turning and fertilising the soil, cutting the grasses that grow between the rows, and adding to the biodiversity that thrives in their vineyards. La Vrille et le Papillon, meaning the tendril and the butterfly, is a name inspired by their parcel of Ugni Blanc at the base of the valley, where butterflies thrive through the growing season, a fitting symbol for the couple's endeavours.

Despite its positioning to the south of the prized vineyards of the Northern Rhone, this rugged valley produces Viognier of elegance and poise, with the Mistral keeping temperatures in check and the clay and limestone soils the predominate in the valley lending the variety a polished-stone minerality when vinified in the right hands. Géraldine & Méryl’s use of temperature control during fermentation preserves the tension between the inherent fruitiness of viognier and telluric backbone that is a hallmark of wines from this valley.

Grapes: Viognier

Region: Valvignères, Ardèche, France

ABV: 13.5%