CA Rhône Whites Equal Summer Delights:

Did you know that California has almost 90k acres of Chardonnay– the most popular white wine in the world? Coming in second is Sauvignon blanc with less than 17k acres. What about white grapes originally from the Rhône region of France planted in California? Not so many! There’s only 2.5k acres of Viognier, 620 acres of Grenache blanc, and 150 acres of Vermentino grown in California according to the California Wine Institute. If you add in miscellaneous rows of Rhône white grapes, it’s unlikely that there’s much more than 4k total. No surprise Americans are more familiar with Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc than Viognier and other white grapes from the Rhône region– an area of southern France where red grapes like Syrah and Grenache are better known and more widely grown (stay tuned and subscribe for Grenache Day in September!)