VINTAGES
By whichever name, pinot gris belongs in your glass

By Randal Caporoso

Is pinot gris — aka pinot grigio — the white wine variety of the moment or even the millennium? And if so, why not? As a white wine, pinot gris has a lot going for it. It is usually dry (and just occasionally, off-dry) but not as heavy as chardonnay, nor as tart as sauvignon or fume blanc. It is never as fragrant as riesling, but not nearly as light or sweet as most rieslings.

Yet as good and refreshing a wine it makes around pools and on backyard decks, pinot gris is definitely a serious wine. Meaning it can be seriously flavorful — a compelling mix of gently floral, fruity (like dripping melons, apples, pears and sometimes lemon), and stony, minerally aromas. A good pinot gris makes me think of flowing brooks over smooth stones as it stretches across the palate with its silky texture and bright, crisp edges. Combine that with a meltingly soft fillet of salmon — grilled, poached or baked, with dollops of cream or butter sauces — or any white meat (from fish and shellfish to chicken and pork) lavished with lemon, leafy green herbs, exotic spices, or even fruit salsas and relishes, and you're in business.

First, a history and geography lesson. Viticulturally, pinot gris is a clonal variation of my favorite red-wine grape, pinot noir. The scientists of the vine say pinot gris probably split off and grew alongside pinot noir as far back as the sixth or seventh centuries in its ancestral home, France's Burgundy region.

I like to think that this explains why, the first time I saw it growing in an Oregon vineyard 11 years ago, I mistook the pinot gris vine for a pinot noir, since pinot gris clusters retain a grayish blue color of ripening red grapes, although the pigmentation is so weak that it dissipates during normal fermentations, thus making a proper "white" wine (or at the most, a white wine with a vaguely coppery cast). I'm told that smatterings of pinot gris are still grown amongst many of Burgundy's most famous pinot noir vineyards, used by the crafty Burgundians to add zip and softness to their red wines.

However, France's most important pinot gris vineyards lie farther north on the west side of the Rhine River, in Alsace. Alsatian pinot gris is fine and often strikingly minerally, but nowadays, also a bit pricey. Crisp, medium-bodied styles made by my favorite producers — notably, F.E. Trimbach, Zind-Humbrecht, Domaine Ostertag, Kuentz-Bas, Domaine Weinbach, Andre Kientzler and Albert Boxler — start around $20.

If you visit a wine store, you will also find that the Alsatians have made it something of a fetish to produce enormously full (alcohol levels exceeding 14 percent), dizzyingly aromatic (like honey on sweet buttered toast), and viscous, almost oily-textured bottlings of pinot gris identified by designations such as "vendange tardive" ("late picked") or "reserve." You'll also know them by their price tags — anywhere from $50 to $100. Your appreciation of this powerhouse style may grow once you develop a taste for the Alsatians' other fetishes — foie gras, chicken and veal in buttery sauces,truffled pate and cou d'oie farci (goose neck stuffed with sausages, cooked in buckets of goose fat).

I prefer a lighter, simpler, zesty pinot gris, and the finest examples of this style are made across the river in Germany's Baden, Pfalz, and Rheinhessen regions. German pinot gris — usually bottled by one of the two German names for the grape, rulander or grauburgunder — are not commonly found in the United States in spite of the fact that more pinot gris is planted in Germany than in any other country.

More commonly seen in America are pinot gris bottlings from Oregon and pinot grigio from Italy. More recently, we have also been seeing fine but fuller- and riper-toned styles of pinot gris from California's warmer regions. Oregon-grown pinot gris, pioneered by producers such as Eyrie, Ponzi, Erath and Adelsheim in the 1970s, tends to hit a nice middle ground between the full, strongly earthy style of Alsace and the light, easy style of northern Italy.

To me, the most perfect example being produced right now is by WillaKenzie Vineyards — an amazingly pure, prettily perfumed, creamy, lacy-textured style of pinot gris, although the regular and reserve bottlings by King Estate, Rex Hill, Chehalem, Hinman and Cristom also rank among the finest from Oregon today.

Because pinot gris essentially is a cold-climate grape, California growers have been slower to warm to the charms and commercial potential of the varietal, although in recent years prestige producers such as Chalk Hill, Luna and Babcock have produced impressively elegant, mildly oak-influenced (vanilla and smoky notes) styles of this variety. Even better may be those by J Wine Co., inundated with soft, almost succulent varietal fruitiness, and a rare but exceedingly charming favorite of mine, that of Handley Cellars in Anderson Valley.

Italy's pinot grigio may be one of the most underrespected wines in the world, even by Italians. Aromatically, the Italian style may veer slightly more towards the neutral side of the grape, but the flavors almost always are mildly crisp yet soft, typically stony and refreshingly dry. The markets are flooded with decent Italian pinot grigio.

Let's compare four of the most consistently fine brands of pinot grigio — most in the $7-$11 range retail:

2001 Kris, Pinot Grigio delle Venezie — Fresh flower, lemon and lavender notes in the nose with nuances of spice (like cinnamon and musk). Light-medium body and stony dry taste and feel, braced by gentle acidity. Not an especially intense or complex style, but who's expecting deep for just $9 or $10?

2001 Ritratti, Trentino Pinot Grigio — A softer (lower-acid), smoother, rounder style, giving subtlely spiced apple and licorice fragrances embedded in the stony varietal character; the flavors picked up by a lush, viscous feel on the palate.

2001 Zenato, Pinot Grigio delle Venezie — Like the Kris, also from the Veneto, a region better known for Soave and Valpolicella. This example shows off lusciously ripe, pear-like fruit laced with an airy fresh note reminiscent of sea salt splashed against flinty white rock. A rich, full, layered, dense-yet-soft and buoyant feel, allowing the honeyed pear-like fruit to drape long, almost lazily across the palate. Lovely length and flavors.

2001 Livio Felluga, Colli Orientali del Friuli Pinot Grigio — The priciest of the bunch ($18) but fascinatingly scented with peach and anise-like notes, packaged in a zesty-edged medium body that fills the palate yet feels refreshingly easy.