Grape Variety: Pinot Grigio

Colour: White

The sleep of reason, wrote Goya, brings forth fools. As far as much Pinot Grigio is concerned the seep of raisins brings forth gruel. Emasculated, marrowless, milquetoast wines. So what have we here? Cool fermentation, a touch of skin contact, a little wine to play with, but not enough to get your teeth into. The Trefili is decent, fruity and does the job. The paradigm of good Pinot Grigio is the savoury, richly nutty style from Alto-Adige or Collio. And it’ll cost you now. As for Pinot Grigio Rosa – well might ye blush. It is a red berry slushie. Formula? Pinot Grigio + Merlot = Tick The Box.

So Pinot Grigio, as we know it, is now primarily a price point and secondly a marketing tool. It is the security blanket of the lazy restaurateur who looks for high margins on cheap brands and for whom the label says more about the wine than the liquid inside.

The problem is that much PG bears no relation to its parent grape. Made in the plains of central Italy (operative word plain) from eye-wateringly high yields the wine loses all flavour and aroma – it is neutered (whether deliberately or commercially). Often the fresh neutrality will be obliterated by swathes of sulphur; this is mias-mamma of all Italian wines (with its brothers-in-crime Soave and Frascati).

PG is a surprisingly difficult grape to get right. It is difficult to ripen the bunches evenly. When picked early the grapes reveal greenness. Conversely, leaving the grapes on the vine brings higher alcohol and lower acidity levels.

The best examples of PG as mentioned come from northern Italy. It performs well in Collio and other parts of Friuli where it displays characteristics of greengages, plums and honey underpinned by a defined minerality. In Trentino and Alto-Adige the wines often reveal a mouth-watering purity.

The Mezza Corona co-operative makes first class wines from vineyards nestled amongst the foothills of the spectacular Dolomite mountains, a region dotted with medieval villages and castles of rare beauty.
Great value Pinot Grigio with typical ground almond flavour and a touch of spritz. The wine is more vinous than most with a suggestion of orchard fruits (apples, green plums) and the sort of weight that can handle most fish dishes. All of the vineyards are cultivated in accordance with “Integrated Farm Management”, an accord for more environmentally friendly agricultural processes in the vineyards to achieve a more natural and healthy product.

Pinot Grigio Bellanotte (from Friuli) takes the grape to the next level. A pre-fermentation cold maceration helps to extract the aromatic components of the grapes and an extended period in contact with the lees lends the wine its eventual softness and equilibrium. This is the true ramato Pinot Grigio with a light amber colour and a pearly sheen in the glass. The nose suggests hay, elderflower and tea rose, followed by red apple, with light tones of dried fruits and almonds. The fine acidity gives the wine sapidity and persistence.

The voluble Paolo Benassi waxes lyrical about wine and the wines of Bellanotte:” A great wine does not exist without a vein of poetry; without poetry wines become flat and meaningless” by which we infer that great wines have an inexplicable internal beauty that defines them and that to appreciate them you need a certain amount of poetry in your soul. Egregious Pinot? No, this is the real thing…

Dario Princic’s biodynamic Trebez is a triumphant triumvirate of Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon if not quark, strangeness and charm. This orange-rose (ramato) wine is bone-dry with a hint of dried grape-skin and suggestion of butterscotch. It’s very understated, a wine that you have to meet more than halfway.