This week's wine: A different Pinot Grigio

Pinot Grigio once seemed the safest of Italian whites - and still does if you buy it from Valvona & Crolla.  Elsewhere it has long been a matter of luck, or lack of luck, but the problem is there to be sidestepped.

If you have rightly become distrustful of northern Italy’s most prevalent white, or if Valvona prices have come to seem too steep, would a southern Italian Pinot Grigio do the trick?  Or a Hungarian one? Or a Slovenian?  Everybody seems to be at it, trading on the fact that it is a wine we have all heard of. 

Though most of these Pinots, for better or worse, taste like Pinot Grigio, choosing something from outside Europe can brings a different perspective. For quite a while now I have been buying Australian Pinot Grigio in the knowledge that it tastes fresher and brighter than most of the Italian stuff, and more interesting than a lot of the Australian chatdonnays that continue to flood the market. 

Lindeman’s Bin 85 Pinot Grigio is a good example. You can buy it with ease at Tesco or Asda or, if you live on Edinburgh’s South Side, at the very useful Avenue Store in Blackford Avenue, where the 2014 vintage is selling, very invitingly, at £7.99, 

Without losing contact with its traditional taste - as Australian Chardonnay certainly does -  it has a cheering Pacific overtone, and adding a bottle to your basket is the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s fine with salads, or pizza, or pasta - all the things Pinot Grigio should match but today often does not.
22 March 2015