Popular culture is an amazing thing. A sub-topic of popular culture is how important a name is. Would Beats by Dr. Dre be half as successful with some less appealing name? So when we talk wine, we have to remember all of the wines throughout history that were inexplicably successful not due to intrinsic worth, but name association/appeal.
Blue Nun.
Mateus Rose’.
Wild Duck.
Merlot.
Marilyn Merlot!
And Pinot Gigio. I too can’t count how many times I have heard someone at my major client say, “I heard you are into wine, what is your favorite Pinot Grigio”?
The aspect of this I enjoy most is when Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year’s arrive and the TV ad campaigns start. You can see and hear the dreadful attempts of the big swill conglomerates to come up with the next great name. “Fluttering Leaves”, “Violet Vines”, “Evening Secrets”, never something more realistic like “Flowing Catheter” or “Vaginal Prolapse”.
I had a 2016 Zind Humbrecht clos windsbuhl that was very good. Tropical,minerality and good acidity.
![[rofl.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7452fcd8e675af869f8da01174474a545b03944.gif "rofl"){kind=small}
If you could get Jay to bite on that suggestion, it would be hilarious!
Probably not what his guests were thinking of when they asked for pinot grigio.
And, since Jay was talking about offering a $20 bottle as a gesture of hospitality toward the vinuously ignorant, I doubt he wants to fork out for Radikon ($45) or Zind Humbrecht Rangen de Thann ($80).
Here is a very good one from a recent tasting
Alois Lageder Pinot Grigio “Porer” 2017: Is there any grape with a worse reputation than Pinot Grigio. Well, you need to try some from the right Italian producers. Nose is fruity, floral, herbal - grassy and notes of ripe pear. flavors of ripe apple and pear, cherry pit, floral, spicy and with good acidity. Also a nice texture to this wine. Sees some skin contact. One of my favorites of the evening.
Venica & Venica and Elena Walch are also very nice.
Tom
Apart from overcropping, wasn’t part of the problem that a lot of what historically was labeled as pinot grigio/gris was actually pinot blanc?
What’s the best 3-ring binder? What’s the best Applebees? What’s the best traffic cone? What’s the best canned peas?
These burning questions somehow tower over “What’s the best Pinot Gris?”
Whatever one isn’t in your glass.
John, no doubt that helped Pinot Grigio earn the “it’s bland” reputation.
Le Sueur Very Young Small Sweet Peas
P.S. Hi Jim
Make your own - take 3/4 bottle of water and add a 1/4 bottle of the worst white you have = instant Pinot Grigio
You’re trying to be a good host and that’s very generous of you, but you should think this through - Make life simple for yourself and give them what they want. Stock a few bottles of the ubiquitous easy to find mass produced Italian brands such as Santa M and be done. Why search for something else, when these guests know what they want and (to be polite) appear to not want something else in the scope of the wine they drink.
What we as geeks find ‘better’ or more interesting, is often the opposite to those folks that want what they are used to or don’t stray from.
The Unterebner bottling by Tramin is a great bottle of white wine - not a good bottle of white wine, a great bottle of white wine.
And as a number of folks have already suggested, if you just cruise the Alto Adige “aisle” of your favorite wine store, there are numerous producers who make decent to good pinot grigio, all of them better than the mass-produced Santa Margherita.
I’ve not yet tried it, but this video makes Kettmeir seem quite attractive.
Elena Walch
Thanks for that link Kevin . . . lots of other similar blind tasting videos there that show the schooled discipline and knowledge of the tasters but the humbling reality of tasting blind. Cheers. -Jim
Tiefenbrunner (Alto Adige) makes a fairly drinkable inexpensive Grigio.
this, of course
A bottle of Borgo del Tiglio Collio Studio di Bianco with a few years of age can make lots of folks pretty happy. (even if it’s a white blend)
Alois Lageder and Tiefenbrunner were going to be my suggestions. So I second those.
I third the recommendation of Schiopetto. A good wine, and not just “good for pinot Grigio”
Jay - you can spend all kinds of money on those suggestions from Alsace or wherever and you’re going to get blank looks from your guests. I’m assuming that your guests want something that actually tastes like something? And even better if it tastes good? Most people asking for Pinot Grigio don’t want a dissertation on soil types and the mythology of minerals, etc. So no joke, get them this one from Charles Smith.
I’m not a fan of his labels, which I think are pretty ugly, or his overall schtick - he’s a chubby guy with long gray hair that stopped looking cool about forty years ago, but he does manage to make some really decent wine that isn’t too expensive and that’s widely available. That’s an underappreciated skill IMO.
Anyway, we’ve had several bottles of this Pinot Grigio and now my wife is pouring it at the shows she’s doing for the next few weeks and it’s pretty popular. It’s under $15 pretty much anywhere, and under $10 at places like Total Wine. We paid a fraction of even that for a few cases. As long as you’re not a label drinker, you’ll like it. Notes of pear and green apple, no oak, just a really pleasant, flavorful wine. Your guests are going to be quite satisfied.
Unlike something like Meiomi, which is loaded with sugar, this is actually made from grapes coming from two vineyards in the Ancient Lakes region of Columbia Valley so you can even talk about terroir if you want to torture your guests!
Disclaimer - you asked for “the best” Pinot Grigio. I’m not qualified to say that this is the best, as I don’t like the grape enough to devote any research to finding the best, but this is absolutely quite satisfying and if it matters, it’s done relatively well with critics over the years.
excellent recommendation, all sustainably grown, too.