Pinot Grigio

You’ll never think of Pinot Grigio the same again. Pinot Grigio is not just the zippy mouth-moisturizer you might have assumed. Expect exceptionally dry whites that pair perfectly with mussels, french fries and hot summer days. This style of wine is loved for its simplicity, ‘lack of fruit’ and sometimes saline quality. Winemakers often choose the word Pinot Gris to describe this fruit-driven wine. You’ll be able to pick out lemon, yellow apple and white peach among the flavours that you smell. This presence of more fruit in the aroma tells us that these wines grew in a more sun-friendly climate.

Besides just the fruity aromas, the wines have less intense acidity and more of an “oily” textured mouthfeel. This is because winemakers often add a special bacteria after the alcohol fermentation that “eats” sharp acids and ‘poops out’ smooth acids. This process is called Malolactic Fermentataion — where Malic acid is the harsh acid and lactic acid is the smooth oily one. Today, Alsace is one of the only regions in the world making a sweet style of Pinot Gris and also South Africa. With flavors of sweet lemon candy, honeycomb and honey crisp apples, winemakers apply very advanced winemaking techniques to increase the mouthfeel texture and use late harvest and noble rot grapes to maximize the flavor potential.