Do you know your Pinot Gris from your Pinot Grigio?
The end of August brings about “World Pinot Noir Day”, a day that predominantly exists to give those in the wine industry something to post about on social media. Whilst I am almost wholly ambivalent to this day, I do agree it is a wine worth celebrating.
Pinot Noir comes from a family of grapes most commonly identified by the French suffixes of Noir, Blanc and Gris and has been grown in the region of Burgundy since the Middle Ages. Whilst its name suggests the Gris grape would have a grey-ish colour, this is a bit of a misnomer; the grapes are a light copper colour, halfway between the more “usual” green or red tones you would imagine from the “black” Noir and “white” Blanc grapes.
The most famous member of this family of grapes is its Italian cousin, Pinot Grigio. Grigio is an Italianisation of the French “Gris” and therefore is, in essence, the same grape as the French version.
Herein lies the irony; Pinot Noir, arguably the grape of some of the most elegant, complex and revered wines in the world is directly related to one of the blandest, most popular and widely drunk. The price difference between wines from stellar producers like Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in Burgundy for their Pinot Noir and Gallo Vineyards Pinot Grigio is just under £2,000 a bottle.
The “Pinot” stem of the name derives from the observation that the grapes are tightly packed clusters, similar to a pine cone. Unfortunately, these bunches do not allow air to circulate amongst each berry making Pinot Noir, in particular, relatively difficult to grow. In the cool and wetter Burgundy, the natural thin skin also makes it susceptible to bunch rot and similar fungal diseases. Consequently, Pinot Noir attracts only the most passionate grower, often with multi-generational experience to draw on.
The highest quality and finest examples of the Gris and Blanc variants can be found in the northeastern French region of Alsace where again, multi-generational experience is necessary to draw out their delicious characteristics. Fascinatingly, the demand for the complex, full-bodied “spicy” style of Pinot Gris the Alsatians produce pales in comparison to demand for the acidic light and, in my opinion, often flavourless Italian style produced under the Grigio title. Grigio is intentionally picked much earlier than Gris to retain that acidity and produce a fresh style the general public enjoy, and that’s not for me to criticise, but this homogenised profile is neither interesting nor exciting.
The third variety, Pinot Blanc, is an interesting halfway house. Pinot Blanc typically offers apple and citrus fruit notes similar to the best versions of Pinot Grigio but often with additional attractive floral characteristics, with some of the best examples coming from the US. The issue with this conversion is the price – Pinot Blanc, through both scale and degree of difficulty to grow, remains costly to produce and therefore is expensive to buy.
Wines to try:
Cono Sur Bicicleta Pinot Noir 2018, Chile – Majestic Wine
Pinot Gris Vendanges Tardives 2009, Trimbach (greatwine.co.uk)
Hugel et Fils – Classic Pinot Blanc 2019 75cl Bottle: TheDrinkShop.com