Grape Variety: Pinot Gris

Colour: White

The strange case of the flipside of Pinot Grigio’s Mr Hyde, the gaunt bulimic grape versus the luscious, plush-ess, honey-and-pastry wine of Alsace and Germany.

Pinot Gris makes golden wines, plump with orchard fruits: williams pears, apples, quince and yellow plums are the fruits that one associates with this grape. Often Alsace version have this strong aroma of marzipan and sweet pastry with further notes of honey and raisins. They are oily wines (acidity tends to be low) and fairly high in alcohol.

The Pinot Gris from Framingham is made in the style of Alsace from hand picked, whole bunch pressed grapes. This version has spicy aromatics and shows apple strudel like flavours of apples, pears, raisins, pastry and cream. Some residual sugar is retained at the end of fermentation to provide alcohol balance. The resultant wine is opulent with a rich, slightly oily texture, good weight and mouthfeel, and a long finish.

All the grapes for Sokol Blosser’s Pinot Gris come from vineyard-owned fruit in the Dundee Hills area. The grapes are not de-stemmed, but pressed as whole clusters and given a slow, cool stainless steel tank fermentation lasting about a month. This is followed by an extended period of lees contact prior to blending and bottling in February the following year. The result is a wine with a firm, focused steely backbone and a creamy lushness. Now, at about 14 months post-bottling, while still exhibiting the primary fresh fruit characters of apple, pear and citrus it is just beginning to show the complex secondary earth, mineral and spice flavours and aromas that will continue to develop over the next few years. The mid-palate is fleshing out and the finish is beginning to lengthen. Pinot Gris is a versatile food wine and is particularly good with shellfish, chicken, quiches, goat’s cheese and smoked fish.

See Pinot Grigio entry for peroration on anaemic winemaking…