donelan Family Winery

California
Roussanne/Viognier
Donelan Family Wines is a small, boutique winery in Sonoma County producing Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Grenache, and Roussanne. They have elected to prize quality over all other factors. Simply put, they think wine should taste great – with every vintage and every grape, this is their ultimate priority and greatest motivation.

Donelan Family Wines believes that the best wines are not made but discovered and take pride in the responsibility and privilege of distilling for your pleasure the greatest qualities and natural variations in a vineyard and a variety. They start with great terroir, because site trumps all variables, and then proceed with extreme selectivity, conscientious winemaking, and extensive blending trials.
2013 Venus Roussanne/Viognier
“Joe Donelan's very successful white is the Roussanne-Viognier blend called Venus. The 2013 Venus, which comes from three vineyards: the Dry Stack Vineyard, which I love for Sauvignon Blanc as well; the Vivio Vineyard and Kobler Vineyard all in Green Valley. The blend is 98% Roussanne and 2% Viognier. The 2013 is a beauty with lots of rose petals, lychee, honeysuckle are followed by a crisp, medium-bodied very stylish wine that seems to have much more minerality than most Roussannes tend to offer as they frequently can get quite oily and rich, but an interesting in that style as well. Nice tropical note of mandarin oranges also makes an appearance in this zesty blend, which was barrel-aged ten months in , I assume, relatively neutral oak puncheons, so as not to interfere with the fruit character.”
Robert Parker Score: 93pts