2019 M. Chapoutier Marius Viognier Pays D'Oc 750 ml

We’re not sure that there’s a winemaker more decorated than Michel Chapoutier. He holds over 44 separate 100-Point scores in the Wine Advocate alone, and his bottles of Hermitage are treasured by collectors the world over.

But unlike most other stratospherically successful collectible winemakers, Chapoutier understands the value of the everyday drinker. So he crafts wines like today’s 2019 Marius Viognier to bring his genius to the Tuesday night table. It perfectly captures Viognier’s bountiful orchard fruit—headlined by apricots and peaches galore—and lilting floral tones that made it a fantastic pairing with a Little Gem salad. We also can’t wait to drink it with an herbed roast chicken or sauteed shrimp pasta.

No one’s got the talent and terroir covered better than Michel Chapoutier, whom Robert M. Parker, Jr. anointed a “young genius” when he first headed from his Northern Rhône home to the Roussillon. Now, two decades later and a slew of high-scoring Roussillon wines later, Chapoutier has as thorough a knowledge of the Pays d’Oc as anyone.

Named for Michel’s great-grandfather, the 2019 Marius Viognier is tribute to the under-sung Viognier grape, which thrives in the clay and calcareous hillside plots of the Pays d’Oc. Viognier is a grape that thrives in the sun, and reflects that sunny, care-free attitude back into the glass. The Marius is easygoing and flat-out delicious, enticing another sip and pleasing crowds along the way. 

Chapoutier ferments and ages this solely in stainless steel to preserve the wine’s purity and elegance, and the result is a bottle that bursts with Chapoutier’s 100-point expertise, and boasts a bargain price tag that will elicit disbelief from the friends with whom you share it.