Pinot Gris vs. Pinot Grigio

Pinot Grigio, the light-bodied fruity white wine from Italy, is extremely popular in the United States for several reasons. It's usually inexpensive, easy to drink and widely-available. People know what it is and aren't afraid to buy it. But most of the budget Pinot Grigio available at restaurants and in grocery stores is pretty simple stuff. And that's fine if that's all you want.

But I get bored pretty easily and want something more going on when I sip a wine. That's why I look for wines labeled Pinot Gris instead of Pinot Grigio.

Actually Pinot Grigio is the Italian synonym for Pinot Gris, a grape that has its origins in France's Alsace region. Pinot Gris, a natural genetic cousin of Pinot Noir, Pinot is French for pine, which describes the pine-cone shape of the grape clusters. Gris is French for gray, referring to the grape's grayish hue.

The grape is also grown in the United States, primarily in California, Washington and Oregon. The labeling of a domestic wine with the name Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio often indicates if the wine is made in the Italian or French style.

In contrast to wines labeled Pinot Grigio, Pinot Gris wines tend to be richer and more complex   whites that can have concentrated aromas of flowers, almonds and honey. These are bigger-bodied wines best served with food.

Among my favorite domestic Pinot Gris are those produced by J Vineyards and Winery in Sonoma. The winery makes three, and its basic Pinot Gris from California is fairly easy to find in St. Louis. I always keep an eye out for sales at Schnucks when it drops to $15. This is a fresh, crisp wine that tastes of pears, tropical fruit and a touch of honey. It finishes with nice, clean citrus with minerality.

Well-balanced, this is a flavorful wine that goes with many foods, but I find it particularly good with spicy Asian cuisine.

A new find for me is the La Crema 2012 Pinot Gris from Monterey, which I tasted for my May 28th column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I bought the wine at Sam's Club for $15.98. This is a delightful, easy-to-drink Pinot Gris that’s fresh and lively with lots of finesse. It has a lovely floral aroma with layers of fresh juicy peach, pear and apple with some lemon and hints of bakery spice.

On the budget side, Oregon's King Estate Acrobat label is always a winner and the Pinot Gris is often on sale. When I find it under $10, I always stock up.

Next week, I'll be tasting a Pinot Gris from Israel for the first time. It's from the Dalton Winery and comes from the Upper Galilee. Stay tuned.


#pinotgrigio #pinotgris
#wine

Red blends. Everything old is new again.

Readers of my St. Louis Post-Dispatch column often ask me how I go about planning my column. To be honest, sometimes I have a plan and sometimes I just walk into a store and find something that strikes my fancy. And sometimes it’s a little of both. For example, I recently had in mind to visit Starrs in Richmond Heights to get a Spanish red from Montsant that the store had been advertising for a good price.

 

But John Nash, one of my local wine gurus, was running an in-store tasting that day and he convinced me to try the Ca’Momi 2012 Rosso DiNapa from Napa Valley. It was only $9.99, which is pretty unusual for a red from the prestigious Napa Valley. I totally changed my mind about the focus of my column after tasting that wine. This turned out to be one of those true “wine finds,” which for me is a budget wine that is truly yummy.

 

Although this wine is still pretty young with a 2012 vintage, the tannins are very soft and it’s ready to drink right now. A blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and zinfandel, this is a juicy wine packed with strawberry and raspberry flavor.  It also has a really nice velvety texture. And because it has good acidity it would go with a variety of foods including pasta with tomato sauce and burgers.

 

The label doesn’t really tell you much about the wine…just basically that it’s a red from Napa Valley. I had to find the varietals by going to the winery’s website. It made me think of how red wine blends are considered a hot category in the United States.  In fact, industry organizations that track sales have created a category for blends as if these wines are a new phenomenon. And supermarkets and other retailers have created special sections within the wine departments dedicated to blends.

 

It’s really a marketing triumph as wineries have found a way to capture the attention of an audience that’s always looking for something new, especially at affordable prices.  It’s just kind of funny, because there’s really nothing new about it. It’s just that U.S. and many other New World wineries have traditionally labeled wines by varietals in contrast to the European way of identifying wines by where they were produced. For example, a French wine with a Bordeaux label might not have any information about the grapes used in the wine. However, these wines are usually blends of specific varietals.

 

But even in the United States, a wine labeled by its varietal, can contain other grapes. Under federal law, wines using varietal names must derive at least 75 percent of their volume from the grape designated. While many wineries voluntarily list the proportions of the grape varieties that comprise their wine blends, they are not required to do so. That means if you buy a wine labeled Cabernet Sauvignon, as much as 25 percent of that wine can be made from other grapes.

 

Now we’re seeing an increasing number of U.S. wineries labeling wines simply as reds or whites. Folie a Deux Winery, which makes the extremely popular red, white and rosé blends under the Ménage à Trois label,  has been doing this for quite a while with a great amount of success. Now others have been catching on. And it’s not just in the United States…it’s wineries from other New World wine growing regions too. Just check out all those malbec blends from Argentina.

 

According to data from Chicago-based market research group IRI, red blend wine sales grew by nearly 20 percent in the 12 months ended in February 2014. The company tracks sales in liquor, grocery, drug and convenience stores. Red blends in the $8 to $10.99 segment were exceptionally strong during this period, growing to nearly $300 million. Sales of red blends priced higher than $20 also rose.

 

So hats off to the marketers for giving us something new --- that’s really old – to love.
#wine #redblends #napavalley

Gewürztraminer - a love/hate relationship

 

Gewürztraminer is a grape that people either tend to either love or hate. It produces such a distinctive wine that it’s hard to be non-committal. It combines highly aromatic floral scents with intense spicy flavors of cardamom and nutmeg. The name of the grape comes from gewürtz, the German word for spiced.

 

In addition, to the grape’s floral and spice attributes, it’s often used to make wines that have varying degrees of sweetness. So the combination of its strong flavors and sweetness really drove me away in the past.

But recently my older brother Bob, a fan of robust dry reds, told me he tasted Gewürztraminer for the first time and thought it was delicious. Since Bob is the one who taught me to appreciate dry wines as a young adult – he had me drinking Cabernet Sauvignon in college – I thought maybe I had been unfair to this grape and I should taste Gewürztraminer again.

So when I was perusing the wine aisle at the in Straub’s in Webster Groves, I spotted the Foris 2011 Dry Gewürztraminer from Oregon’s Rogue Valley. I figured this wine was worth trying for a number of reasons.

 

For starters, it comes from the well-respected Foris Vineyards Winery. Its founders are Ted and Meri Gerber, who are considered among Oregon’s winemaking pioneers.  Foris is known for producing consistently good Pinot Noir, and Alsace varietal white wines including Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewürztraminer and Riesling.

Another plus is that this Gewürztraminer wine had gotten rave reviews. 

Wine Enthusiast, for example, gave it 90 points. "The lovely floral aromas are a pure expression of the grape’s unique spice and rose petal characteristics. It's deeply flavorful, soft, elegant and lingering, with a lychee flavor,” the review said.

Two other selling points for me were that the label said the wine was dry and it was affordably priced at $12.49. 

I tasted the Gewürztraminer blind along with the Efestē Evergreen Riesling from Washington’s Columbia Valley. When I smelled the two wines there was no doubt which one was the Gewürztraminer. The Riesling smelled of honey and stone fruit while the Gewürztraminer had a powerful floral aroma mixed with the strong scent of bakery spices. 

 

Although I really wanted to like this wine, the flavors were just too intense for me. But that’s my palate. Obviously other wine drinkers really enjoy Gewürztraminer so I encourage you to give it a try.  Such a highly flavorful, spicy wine would go well with foods that are also flavorful and spicy. 

The Efestē Evergreen Riesling, priced at $15.99, is also a flavorful wine, but it’s more my kind of thing. This is a lively and refreshing wine. It’s dry but not bone dry and the crisp acidity balances the sweet stone fruit, pear and apple flavors.  If you think all Rieslings are too sweet, I’d encourage you to taste this one. It’s a lovely, food friendly wine for a summer meal.

#wine #riesling #gewurztraminer #columbiavalley #roguevalley

 

 

 

 

Pinot Noir...a little guidance goes a long way

There are many good reasons to visit specialty wine shops and seek advice from staff members who know their stuff.  For starters, if you live in the St. Louis market, you are bound to find a much more interesting selection of wines at one of these retailers than at a chain grocery store. And sometimes, the prices are even better.

But I think it's also very important to identify knowledgeable sales people who can  give you guidance about wines. Try to find sales staff  members who have actually tasted the ones you are interested in. If you enjoy the wines they recommend, then get the person's name and make sure you ask for them the next time you visit the store. These relationships are very, very valuable.

For example, when I was thinking about the wine I would feature for Mother's Day in my St. Louis Post-Dispatch column, I consulted Paul Hayden at the Wine & Cheese Place in Clayton. In fact, I even emailed Paul before I visited the store so that I could get several suggestions in advance. I wanted to feature a special Pinot Noir in the column that was about double my usual price limit of $15.

Pinot Noir is a tough grape to grow and to develop into a fine wine. Because of that, a good one...I mean a really good one...can be very, very pricey. Yes, you can get an okay pinot noir for less than $15, but when you get into Pinot Noir from Burgundy, which produces some of the greatest Pinot Noir in the world, the prices can be very high.

The main levels in the Burgundy classifications, in descending order of quality, are: grand crus, premier crus, village appellations and regional appellations. I knew I wouldn't be able to get a Burgundian Pinot Noir from the top levels for $30, but I hoped to find a nice Bourgogne AOC, which is a regional appellation.

So I reached out to Paul to see what he would recommend. He offered a suggestion for a wine I probably would have totally missed without his guidance. It was the Domaine Coste-Caumartin 2010 Bourgogne Rouge priced at $25.99.

Only 530 cases of this 100 percent pinot noir wine were produced by this estate that has been family-owned since 1793 and has some of the best parcels in Pommard, where it’s based. The grapes for this wine come from vineyards just below Pommard in the Côte de Beaune, which comprises the southern half of the Côte d'Or. Its wines tend to be lighter body than those from Côtes de Nuits to the north.  

It turned out to be a lovely little wine. Yes, it does have a light body, but this delicate wine has an amazing amount of intense black cherry flavor. Plus it's extremely elegant,  silky smooth and very easy to drink. 

This is the perfect red for my regular diet, which is pretty much Mediterranean: lots of fish and vegetables. This is a Pinot Noir that would be absolutely great with salmon, grilled vegetables or goat cheese.
#wine #pinotnoir #burgundy #bourgogne