$10 Tuesday: Viognier Mate

This week we have an Australian Viognier from Deen De Bortoli. Interestingly, all of the Viognier we have written up on this blog have been in the $10 range. I wouldn't rate this as the best of the group but I will say that this is certainly a "safe" wine with mass appeal.

There is lots of ripe tropical fruit and butter on the nose. It's citrusy on the palate with pretty good acidity. It goes very flat in the mid-palate and has a short finish but, it's quite an adequate wine when paired with broiled salmon, rice and broccoli in a lemon-butter sauce. Even though I wasn't overly impressed with this wine, I'll admit I was slugging it down with the salmon; I was thirsty.

So to recap: Most people would like this wine; most wine people wouldn't; not bad for ten bucks; then again, for ten bucks there are a lot of good choices in Viognier. So, maybe try this one instead. I could have looked past the ubiquitous butteriness of this wine, if it weren't for the disappearing act on the mid-palate.