WHITE WINE / Pinot Gris

Pinot Gris is an aromatic white grape variety widely planted across a number of regions throughout Europe including Romania, Switzerland, Italy (where it is known as Pinot Grigio) and France, where it’s most renowned. And while it’s grown in small quantities in Burgundy and the Loire Valley, it is in Alsace (located on the eastern Franco German border) where Pinot Gris is planted on highly regarded grand cru vineyard sites, producing truly unique and powerful wines that this variety reaches its zenith. Alsace Pinot Gris Alsace possesses a unique combination of fruit sweetness, spice and high acidity producing rich wines which in their youth the spice and fruit characters of peach, apricot and ginger are predominant and develop into savoury characteristic of biscuit, butter and nuts with age. Pinot Gris is also use to produce the great late picked wines of Alsace, Vendange Tardive and Selection de Grains Nobles, the former which consist of late picked fruit with minimum sugar level which can be either dry or sweet. The latter is a lusciously sweet wine produced with botrytis affected fruit. Outstanding producers include Trimbach, Domaine Weinbach, Marcel Deiss, Hugel, Zind Humbrecht and Jean Luc Mader.

Pinot Gris has developed new popularity in the New world in Australia, New Zealand and USA. Notable regions include Oregon (USA), Mornington Peninsula, Tasmania (Australia), Central Otago and Martinborough. Outstanding producers include Elk Cove (Oregon), Archangel (Central Otago), Ata Rangi and Dry River (Martinborough), Paradigm Hill and Ocean Eight (Mornington Peninsula).

Sources:
The Oxford Companion to Wine, (ed) Jancis Robinson