Pinot Grigio, the white Venetian wine which in recent years has spread throughout the rest of Italy with the ease - or so its detractors would claim - of cholera, now has other European versions as well as plenty in the New World.
But the Veneto remains its authentic home, producing bottles as good and as bad as ever, though the Pinot Grigio listed by Marks and Spencer as one of its wines of the month in fact comes from Pavia, south of Milan.
Pavia, too, routinely produces plenty of junk wine, as well as a foaming red which people love or loathe. But M&S’s Pavese Pinot, reduced umpromisingly from £11 t0 £5, is really rather good, clean, sparky, and not at all drab - in other words a genuine bargain which, drunk very cold, would brighten anyone’s Christmas party.
At a different extreme, M&S’s Macon-Villages Uchizy has not been reduced from £11, which is admittedly not particularly high for a decent white burgundy, though there are others just as good available for less.
Waitrose’s Champteloup Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine is not a white burgundy at all but is certainly a good Loire, worth every penny of its £7.99 price tag, possessing all the frisky petillance you would hope for from a wine bottled on its lees. Drink it with a bowl of mussels and be happy.
18 December 2015
But the Veneto remains its authentic home, producing bottles as good and as bad as ever, though the Pinot Grigio listed by Marks and Spencer as one of its wines of the month in fact comes from Pavia, south of Milan.
Pavia, too, routinely produces plenty of junk wine, as well as a foaming red which people love or loathe. But M&S’s Pavese Pinot, reduced umpromisingly from £11 t0 £5, is really rather good, clean, sparky, and not at all drab - in other words a genuine bargain which, drunk very cold, would brighten anyone’s Christmas party.
At a different extreme, M&S’s Macon-Villages Uchizy has not been reduced from £11, which is admittedly not particularly high for a decent white burgundy, though there are others just as good available for less.
Waitrose’s Champteloup Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine is not a white burgundy at all but is certainly a good Loire, worth every penny of its £7.99 price tag, possessing all the frisky petillance you would hope for from a wine bottled on its lees. Drink it with a bowl of mussels and be happy.
18 December 2015
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