Paul Jaboulet Aîné Viognier 2024 Review: Building a Meal Around the Wine

Sometimes I choose the wine to go with dinner. This time I pretty much did the opposite.

I was in Morrisons looking for something for the evening and found myself torn between two Viogniers. There was a Paul Mas 2025 at £8.50, which looked like an absolute steal, and this Paul Jaboulet Aîné Viognier 2024 at £11.75.

I nearly went for the Paul Mas, but something told me the Jaboulet might just have that little bit more about it. So I spent the extra £3.25 and then started thinking about what I could cook to really give the wine a chance to show itself.

My first thought was peach.

Building Dinner Around Viognier

Viognier is known for those lovely peach and apricot flavours, so I thought why not take that quite literally and grill some fresh peaches?

From there the dish started growing.

I wanted something salty to balance the fruit, so feta went in. Then cherry tomatoes and basil for freshness. At that point it needed something more substantial, and after wandering around the fish counter for considerably longer than anyone reasonably should, I eventually settled on hake.

Then I spotted some little Patagonian scallops and king prawns.

At that point dinner had escalated somewhat.

The final plate was pan fried hake with scallops and king prawns alongside a salad of grilled peach, cherry tomatoes, feta, basil and leaves. Everything was kept relatively simple because the whole point was to see what happened with the Viognier.

Paul Jaboulet Aîné Viognier 2024

Before starting the food I poured a little taste straight from the fridge. Cracking drop!

On the nose it was immediately stone fruit, but underneath that I got something I can only describe as a hint of creamed scone. Not full on butter or brioche, just this lovely soft, creamy bakery note sitting behind the fruit.

In the glass it was delicious.

Peach and apricot came through immediately, followed by a little whomp of vanilla. It wasn’t necessarily the flavour alone that stood out though, it was the way it felt.

This was the type of wine that coated your mouth.

It’s almost the complete opposite of something like Sauvignon Blanc, where you can get that immediate hit of acidity and freshness. This was broader and softer, with the stone fruit and vanilla rolling around the palate rather than attacking it.

I left some in the glass while I cooked because I wanted to see what happened as the temperature came up.

Viognier Really Changes With Temperature

This was probably one of the more interesting things about the bottle.

As it warmed, the wine changed beautifully. The aromas opened up and that creamy, vanilla side became much more pronounced. The whole thing became broader, richer and more expressive.

On its own, I actually really enjoyed watching it develop.

With dinner, however, I preferred it colder.

Once the wine had warmed up it became quite rich, and there was already plenty happening on the plate. Straight from the fridge it had enough freshness to work with the seafood while still giving me all that lovely peach and apricot character.

It was a nice reminder that the temperature at which a wine is most expressive isn’t necessarily the temperature at which it’s going to work best with food.

The Peach Worked, But the Feta Stole the Show

I’d built the whole pairing around the grilled peach because I wanted to mirror the peachy character of the Viognier. And it worked!

The wine amplified everything on the plate, and when you got some of the grilled peach with a mouthful of wine the connection was obvious. The peach also cut through everything beautifully and gave the dish these little bursts of sweetness and freshness.

But strangely enough, the ingredient I came away thinking about most wasn’t the peach. It was the feta. That salty hit was absolutely brilliant.

There was a lot of softness on the plate between the hake, sweet scallops, prawns and grilled peach, while the wine itself was broad, creamy and full of ripe fruit. Every time you got a bit of feta it suddenly brought everything back into focus.

It kept the plate seriously interesting.

The peach mirrored the wine, but the feta balanced it. I think without that salty contrast the whole thing could quite easily have become a bit too rich and soft.

Instead, I just kept wanting another mouthful.

Was It Worth Spending the Extra £3.25?

Obviously I can’t say how the Paul Mas would have performed without opening a bottle alongside it, and at £8.50 I still think that wine looks like tremendous value.

But I certainly didn’t regret spending £11.75 on this.

The Paul Jaboulet Aîné Viognier 2024 delivered exactly what I wanted from the variety. Loads of stone fruit, that lovely creamy character, a little vanilla and, most importantly, proper texture.

It was interesting on its own and even better with food.

What started as a fairly simple idea of matching peach in the food with peach in the wine ended up becoming one of those dinners where you learn something along the way.

The obvious flavour bridge worked, but it was the contrast provided by the salty feta that really made the pairing.

And sometimes that’s the fun of pairing wine with food. You can plan everything around one idea and something completely different ends up stealing the show.

Through the Terroir Rating: 90/100

For £11.75, I’d happily buy this again. Just don’t serve it too warm if you’re putting it alongside food. Give it time in the glass to see what it can do, absolutely, but for this particular dish the colder glass won comfortably.