Pinot Gris
'Gray' pinot whose style swings from neutral Italian pinot grigio to opulent, smoky-spicy Alsace pinot gris; a color-mutation clone of pinot noir.
About the grape
Depending on where it is grown, pinot gris — 'gray' pinot — can taste strikingly different. The most widely known style, Italian pinot grigio, is usually the lowest in quality, often utterly neutral, though there are exceptions. The pinot gris of Alsace, France is nearly the opposite: complex, opulent, often a bit smoky and spicy but still precise and crisp, and one of Alsace's four 'noble' varieties. In Germany (as grauburgunder) it can be broad and Rubenesque; Oregon versions show pear and spice-cake. Technically it is not its own variety but a color-mutation clone of pinot noir, so the grapes range from bluish silver to mauve-pink to ashen yellow.
Where it grows
Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Oregon, Willamette Valley
