Hi all- Jackie here since Lindsey is on a much needed vacation with the fam (jealous). I am going to attempt to do this on my own…. Look forward to grammatical errors :-). Sorry this is a day late but took some time with family this holiday weekend and lets just say yesterday did not go as planned. Short version is that Fitz, my 3 month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, had a sick day yesterday. It was not pretty and required a panicky call to the vet and a much needed glass of wine once he was feeling better in the evening. So without much ado…. this week we are tasting Pinot Grigio.
According to Google, my least and favorite thing at the moment (see above about panicky call to the vet), Pinot Grigio is the second most popular wine in America thus I am calling it the lemonade of wine. As we mentioned last week when we tasted Pinot Noir, these grapes are related as they both grow in pine coned-shaped clusters. After some research I was interested to learn that Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris are interchangeable in terms of the name, but I did learn that Pinot Grigio suggests a drier Italian style wine while Pinot Gris suggests a fruity French style (note to self stick to Pinot Gris).
There are 3 main types of Pinot Grigio – Minerally and Dry, Fruity and Dry, and Fruity and Sweet. Minerally and Dry types of Pinot Grigio tend to come from cool climates such as northern Italy. These are often produced in stainless steel tanks (no oak aging) and supposedly have lower alcohol levels (boringgggggggggggg). Fruity and dry pinots come from warmer climates such as California or Tuscany and, as the name suggests, are more fruit forward. Common fruits are lemon, peach, pear, and lime. These also tend to be less acidic, which is good for my heartburn :-). Finally fruity and sweet pinot gris come from places like France. There is currently only one region in France making a sweet style of Pinot Gris which is Alsace. So needless to say no Pinto Grigio is the same. There are so many varieties that we will just have to revisit in a future tasting!
Well that is all for today. We will post on Thursday this week’s review of an amazingggggggggg Pinot Grigio we tried this week. Hope those in the U.S. had a safe and happy 4th!
The Winehoes 