This week's wine: Pinot Gris

Pinot Gris is one of the great white grapes of Alsace, which has recently been adopted by New Zealand.  In both guises it yields excellent, strongly recommended wine.

True, its most prevalent source of supply - the hinterland of Venice, where it is Italianised as Pinot Grigio - lies elsewhere, and  produces something not only quite different but by no means always a satisfying buy.


So take care.  Pinot Grigio wine, in its numerous Italian  forms, can be found everywhere, both cheaply and surprisingly dearly, though the dearer wines are not always superior to the cheap.

Produced by a  single vineyard, however, they can be very good and not to be sneered at.  Mass produced, on the other hand,  they are usually very basic, and not worth buying, except as a companion for fish suppers or the most routine pasta dishes.

But an Alsace Pinot Gris, if you can find one, is another matter. This week, unexpectedly, I came upon an admirable one in my local branch of Morrison’s, with a £7.99 price tag well below  what I would have been prepared to pay for it.

Alsace  wines are generally regarded as sweet with an interesting  undertone of dryness, or else dry with an overtone of sweetness, but this one got the balance right. Served as an aperitif and then with trout it was a success.


A New Zealand Pinot is similar, though with predictably more pronounced Kiwi notes. Waitrose currently stocks a nice one costing £9.59, with one of those rollicking  Kiwi names,  that you should not let yourself be deterred by. But if you can bear to ask for a bottle of Marlborough  Hunky Dory The Tangle, mixing Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, and Riesling, you are not likely to be disappointed. Again, as  an aperitif it is delicious.

Alternatively, also from New Zealand, there is Rod Easthope’s Pinot Gris, which goes up and down in price, but never rises too high.  Eashope is one of those new young producers whose wines are available through Naked Wines, and this is a particularly inviting one.
23 September 2025