The Lane Pinot Gris 2006

Random Aussie Bloke brought this wine over. He was saving it for the next time I made General Tso's Chicken. Theoretically a good match, except that I made the chicken ridiculously spicy. A slight oversight on my part, especially since his wife is pregnant and had to eat a whole pack of Remegel in order to make it through the meal.

The wine is definitely a Pinot Gris as opposed to a Pinot Grigio. It's fat, oily, floral, apple, pear, etc. The food overpowered it (nothing could have stood up to that), but you could tell it was a top-class wine.

No idea where he got it or what it cost. Probably not cheap.

The Lane

Pinot Gris 2006

Adelaide Hills, Australia

4/5

Waimea Estate Pinot Gris 2008

I bought two bottles of this on a recent trip to Devon. One we drank down there, and the other I brought back to London with me. The one we drank there didn't make much of an impression on me - it didn't go well with the food we were having and I just wasn't in the mood for it.

I opened the second bottle last week, and I only had a small glass of it, which I enjoyed much more this time around. My cousin drank the rest of it (and obviously enjoyed it). I wasn't going to bother blogging about it - sometimes you just can't be bothered or just don't have anything to say.

I just noticed however that this wine won a gold medal at the 2009 Decanter World Wine Awards, which is worth noting. Apologies for not having much more to say about it - like I said I wasn't planning to blog this. My score reflects the overall enjoyment factor of everyone at the table, rather than any individual scrutiny I would usually put it under.

UPDATE: Just had a bottle of the 2009, and it is a really nice wine. Deserves the 4/5 score. Not cheap but worth the money. Good stuff.

Waimea Estate
Pinot Gris 2008
Nelson, New Zealand
Majestic
£8.99 (£10.99)
4/5

Italia Pinot Grigio 2008

If you're a wine geek (I prefer that term to "wine snob"), then you are probably somewhat careful around this grape variety. It's known for producing lakes of boring, cheap, dry white wine.

Before I got into this wine thing, I was guilty of drinking it as well. If you go into a pub and know nothing about wine, the last thing you want is a warm, oaky Chardonnay or an overly sweet white Zinfandel or German white (to be honest, I've never noticed a sweet German white being served in a London pub before - did they used to do this?). So inevitably, you just say "I'll have a dry white wine", and that became synonymous with Italian Pinot Grigio. Sure, it can be dull, but it does what it says on the tin. It's reliable.

So, we got this wine from Waitrose as part of the "£10 dinner for two" deal. I have times where I wish I had more wine like this lying around, especially in the summer. Yes, it's generic, but these things come in handy.

As for the wine itself, it's OK. It tastes like pears. It's crisp. Nothing wrong with it. It lacks the silky texture and body that some of its Pinot Gris counterparts have, but that's not what it's all about. Don't be embarrassed about Pinot Grigio - it's popular for a reason.

It's produced by a co-op - "Co-op Agricola per Adria Vini". There you go.

Italia

Pinot Grigio 2008

Venezie IGT, Italy

Waitrose

~£5

3/5

Valdivieso Single Vineyard Pinot Gris Reserva 2007

I was placing an order with Bibendum, and I decided to add a case of this on at the last moment. I really like Pinot Gris, and I've never had one from Chile before. This particular one also got a couple of favourable mentions from wine writers that I religiously follow. It's currently going for £9.99 per bottle, but I got it for just over £7 during Bibendum's summer sale.

One thing that was mentioned by these writers is that this is a food wine. I completely agree with that. It's a very savoury wine - the pear fruit aromas and oily texture hide a wine with a bit of a grip to it - it would be slow going without food to complement it. A crude way to describe it would be to say it has a bitter finish, but that makes it sound unpleasant, which it isn't. I found it a good match with cheese, especially the Ossau-Iraty.

An interesting wine for sure.

Oddly, the wine is missing from Valdivieso's website in the "Single Vineyard" section for some reason.

Valdivieso

Single Vineyard Pinot Gris Reserva 2007

Lontue Valley, Chile

Bibendum

£9.99

3.5/5

The Ned Pinot Grigio 2008

This was a nice surprise. I suspected that this wine wasn't going to be dull, watery plonk like a lot of Italian Pinot Grigio is, but I didn't think it was going to be this good.

The most striking things about this wine are the colour (a very pale orange) and a smooth, velvety texture (perhaps due to very ripe grapes and a tiny hint of residual sugar - unexpected but welcome).

This is a lot closer to an Alsace Pinot Gris than an Italian Pinot Grigio (quick reminder - they're the same grape variety), and luckily for me because I much prefer the former. Flavours of pale summer fruit and some floral notes as well in there. Really, really good. This would be great on its own, or with a salad maybe, even a fruit one.

The Ned

Pinot Grigio 2008

Marlborough, New Zealand

Waitrose

£7.49 (£9.99)

4/5

Cave de Beblenheim Pinot Gris Réserve 2007

I'm a big fan of Alsatian wine, and Alsatian Pinot Gris is no exception. For the uninitiated, the Pinot Gris grape is the same grape as Pinot Grigio, which you may know from the mega litres of Italian plonk produced with it. However, the difference between a French Pinot Gris and an Italian Pinot Grigio is like night and day. That's not to say all Pinot Grigio is bad, it's not, but there is a big difference in style here.

Where Pinot Grigio is a pale, crisp, light and usually very dry wine, Pinot Gris can be deep yellow, round, fat and off-dry. It's hard to believe they are the same grape. I think all Alsatian whites have a similar style, regardless of the grape variety. Alsace, unlike the rest of France, labels their wine by grape variety. Try a Gewurztraminer, Riesling, Pinot Blanc or a blended Vin d'Alsace from Alsace, and you'll find that they all have similar characteristics, and are totally different than their new world (or other European) counterparts. I really believe that terrior is just as important, if not more important, than grape variety when determining a wine's character. People are too obsessed with grape varieties, and I think that they should start looking beyond that and into what country/region really excites them.

Enough of the lecture. This particular wine is made by the co-op Cave de Beblenheim. I can't really tell if it's only made for Waitrose, or what makes it a "Réserve", but no matter. It's sometimes hard to tell with these wines if they are off-dry (i.e. a bit of residual sugar) or just very aromatic, but I think in this case there is a bit of sweetness going on, which is actually very pleasant, especially for drinking with spicy food. This is the primary role of these wines in my home, and they do it very well.

Regarding the price, I think I got it on offer for around £6, and it goes for about £8 normally.

Cave de Beblenheim
Pinot Gris Réserve 2007
Alsace AC, France
Waitrose
£6 (£8)
3.5/5

Dino Pinot Grigio delle Venezie 2008 IGT

Since I became interested in wine, I think I've had a grand total of 2 Pinot Grigios. I used to drink it all the time, as it was a dry, innocuous white that is easily glugged and won't clash with your chips, burger or whatever it is you are eating (if anything) in the pub. Then I discovered Sauvignon Blanc, Alsace, Riesling, and all sorts of other white wine novelties. Pinot Grigio quickly fell off the radar.

I do like a dry Italian white with some of the food I make at home though, so I'm always on the lookout for a decent, everyday-drinking type wine. We tried the Dino Sangiovese a while back, and figured that it was an OK deal (on offer). So I saw this white was on offer for 2 for £8 so I thought I would give it a try.

First of all, I don't think it's very good. It tastes like a cheap white. A bit fruity but a bit rough, you know the type that needs to be chilled to almost freezing to make it taste half-decent. I don't think I would buy it again on offer, let alone for the full price of around £8.

Then I looked up the wine on Tesco's website. Either there are two different Pinot Grigios for sale under the Dino name, or someone has made a mistake. The only Dino Pinot Grigio wine on the website is called "Dino Pinot Grigio Valdadige DOC", which would indicate that it is a DOC certified wine from the Trentino – Alto Adige region in Northern Italy. However, the actual label on the bottle says "Dino Pinot Grigio delle Venezie IGT", which I think just means "from north east Italy", specifically the regions Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

I don't know if this is mistake or not...it could be that Tesco does sell the DOC wine, and it just happens to be on offer as well, and they don't sell the IGT one online. I reckon it's a screw up though, just because it's Tesco and it's a pretty crap website.

Dino
Pinot Grigio delle Venezie 2008 IGT
Venezie, Italy
Tesco
£4.00 (when you but 2)
2.5/5