I’ll be honest.  I went into this review a little biased.   Having already reviewed a few of their wines, including their 2009 cabernet sauvignon and 2009 pinot noir, I’m somewhat familiar with the story behind this winery.  They’re relatively new on the block, and still cutting their stylistic teeth on their first few vintages.  And while working with power reds like pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon offers some margin of error, pinot grigio does not.

But I’m here to report that this wine pleasantly surprised me.  Pinot grigio is not a complex wine, and examples from Napa can come across even more muted than more genuine, Italian versions.   But this wine offered vibrancy, along with complex fruit that one rarely sees in this varietal.

On the nose, the wine is a bit vegetal, with hints of grass and celery.  But it also serves up a soft lychee-like fruit that is pleasant and somewhat exotic.  Overall, the nose is far more potent than I would have expected, and quite inticing, too.  However, it doesn’t offer the same level of crispness that Italian versions would normally offer.

On the palate the acidity in the wine takes time to show, but once it does, the wine offers up a slightly sweet and vibrant style, if only slightly off-balance.  The winemaker’s notes tout tropical citrus, but I failed to pick up any tropical fruit.  There is plenty of sour apple and a touch of sweet lime as well.  Still, the wine offers more complexity than I’ve found in other pinot grigios at even twice the price.

This style will appeal to most lighter-bodied, white wine drinkers, but I expect that most pinot grigio purists won’t find this wine appealing.   If your tastes appeal to more exotic sauvignon blancs, but you’re looking for an even better value, the Flip Flop 2010 deserves a try.

A  Salute!

Wine: Flip Flop
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2010
Alcohol: 13%
Rating: 85
Price: $7.00

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Disclosure: This wine was received as a sample.

It’s been a while since we’ve reviewed a pinot grigio, so we need no more reason than that to check one out today.

This one comes from Voga Italia and they win the award for coolest, sexiest bottle I’ve seen all week.  When I first saw this bottle I thought it would just be a screw cap, but there’s actually a synthetic cork underneath the cap.  So, fair warning, don’t take this one on a camping trip without a corkscrew or you may find yourself beating the bottom of the bottle inside a boot to remove the cork.  Anyway, once you get the cork out, you can reseal the bottle with the screw cap.

But ultimately, it’s what’s in the bottle that really matters.  And I have no complaints about what’s in this bottle.

This wine has some really nice pear and floral aromatics, with moderate intensity.  The flavors are mostly pear and apple, but it also offers some lime and subtle peach notes.  The acidity is sufficient, but not dramatic.  The finish is nice and long.  Overall, it’s a pretty nice wine.  And it will look stylish sitting on your shelf before you drink it.

My wife liked this one too and said it paired well with peanut butter.  That’s not a pairing I would have picked, but I could see it working.

Wine: Voga Italia
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2010
Alcohol: 12%
Rating: 87
Price: $10.99

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Disclosure: This wine was received as a sample.

The weather is starting to turn to autumn, but we’ve had a few more warm days recently here in Cincinnati so I’m going to take advantage of it to continue reviewing tasty summer wines.  But this is one that you don’t have to limit to summer drinking.  If you’re a pinot grigio fan, this is one you’ll enjoy any time of year.

This past weekend I was invited to a crab boil, so I wanted to bring a good shellfish wine.  So, I took my tasting notes on this one and enjoyed the rest with some crab.  That said, I did not taste this one blind as we usually do.

The Tenuta Ca’Bolani pinot grigio comes from the Aquileia in the Friuli appellation in Italy.  This area has been prized for its wines since Roman times.

When I’m drinking a pinot grigio, I’m not looking for intense fruit flavors.  What I’m looking for is a very dry white wine with crisp acidity and interesting mineral characteristics to give the wine depth.  And that’s exactly what I found in this wine.

The nose is really nice, with lime, melon and mineral aromas, plus some herbal/hay notes that added some complexity and interest. The palate is nice and tart, just like I like a pinot grigio, with exceptional acidity.  The flavors are light, but enjoyable with notes of lime, granny smith apple and chalk.  The finish is relatively long and brings a touch of sea salt, along with a continuation of the lime flavor.

Wine: Tenuta Ca’Bolani
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2010
Alcohol: 12.5%
Rating: 87
Price: $12.99

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Disclosure: This wine was received as a sample.

Pinot Grigio gets a bad wrap.  And I think I’m partially to blame.  Having run an Italian restaurant with a very comprehensive wine list, I was compelled to offer a pinot grigio (or even two) on our list.  But, man it was hard.  Pinot grigio is, in all honesty, my least favorite wine on the planet.  And this is coming from a wine lover that has an appreciation for all wines, no matter the level of concentration, or complexity.  But that’s a very relative statement because even on a wine lover’s list, some wine needs to be last, right?  My issue with pinot grigio is based on it’s tendancy to lack balance in acid and fruit, often focused too much on the former.  Many other Italian varietals, such as vernaccia di San Giminiano, garganega and cortese di Gavi, all offer good quality AND more importantly, some character.  Why did I need to offer our customers a pinot grigio?

But pinot grigio has improved dramatically since the mid-nineties and these days, there are more than a few pinots offering really good quality at compelling price-points.  And now, there are numerous domestic offerings, providing equally high quality.  So we decided to review some of these domestic offerings and see if they could offer up a quality pinot grigio experience.

I was hoping for some unique wines offering some of the traits that you should expect from quality pinot grigio, such as acidity and crispness, mild apple and pear, with a lingering, finish.  We had six entries, and the wines were all tasted blind.   Let’s see what we found.

Glen Ellen, Proprietor’s Reserve

This wine actually surprised me.  As the wines were revealed I didn’t expect much from the Glen Ellen.  But when I matched up my scores with the wines the Glen Ellen actually scored fairly well.  None of these wines offered any real intensity, and the Glen Ellen was no exception there, but it did offer up a nice crisp yeasty nose, mild tropical notes, bell pepper and lemon grass.  It actually has some interesting dry Riesling qualities.  It’s a decent wine, and when you factor in the price, it represents a nice value.

Wine: Glen Ellen, Proprietor’s Reserve
Variety: 100% Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2009
Alcohol: 12%
Rating: 83
Price: $9.99 for 1.5L

Turning Leaf

I found the Turning Leaf mildly perfumed as well, with pear notes, honey, and a nice acidity.  But where the Glen Ellen offered some distinct qualities, the Turning leaf came off rather simple and focused.   Again, you have a decent wine here, but at $8.00 a bottle, it’s not quite the value that the Glen Ellen is.  I will say that if you like a crisper style of wine, you may prefer the Turning Leaf over the Glen Ellen.

Wine: Turning Leaf
Variety: 75% Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2009
Alcohol: 12.73%
Rating: 82
Price: $8.00

Luna

The Luna was one of the disappointments of the bunch.  I’ve had Luna’s wines before, and they usually offer richer interpretations of their respective Italian varietal equivalents.   This wine offered a bit more body than the others, but it wasn’t pleasant.  I found some mild bitterness in the wine and the fruit was masked.  Maybe it was the age, maybe it was the lack of acidity, or maybe it was that this wine ventures a bit too far from the traditional interpretation of Pinot Grigio.  Whatever the reason, I’ll pass.

Wine: Luna
Variety: 95% Pinot Grigio, 5 % Chardonnay
Vintage: 2008
Alcohol: 14.1%
Rating: 79
Price: $18.00

Forest Glen, Tehachapi Clone

The Forest Glen made a decent showing as well, but it finished about mid pack in this group.  It offers up some perfumed notes, along with some honey, mineralization and mild acidity.  But it had a very mild chemical note that came and went.  I didn’t sense anything really wrong with the wine, but I preferred others in this group.

Wine: Forest Glen
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2009
Alcohol: 12.5%
Rating: 81
Price: $18.00

Terra D’Oro

This may have been the biggest disappointment of the bunch.  I’ve had Terra D’Oro’s wines before and I’ve enjoyed them.  But this wine didn’t really offer anything for me to enjoy.  It was very muted, both in the nose, and the palate.  It had a yeasty quality, but very mild acidity.  It lacked any structure and fell off further in the nose.  It could have been a victim of age as well.

Wine: Terra D’Oro
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2008
Alcohol: 12.5%
Rating: 78
Price: $15.99

The Naked Grape

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our winner.  I actually liked this wine, and of all the wines here, I’d buy this one for myself.  It offers a nice balance of acidity, and fruit.  On the palate, it offers bell pepper, mild honey and a grassy note.  A little more intensity and you’d have a very nice wine.

Wine: The Naked Grape
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: NV
Alcohol: 12.9%
Rating: 84
Price: $9.00

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So, overall, not bad, but I came away a bit disappointed.  Having tasted so many Italian pinot grigios that are now flirting with outstanding quality, I found the majority of these wines uninspiring.

So if it were my money and I was in the mood for pinot grigio, I’d be checking out The Naked Grape.  The wine offered up really nice acidity, indicative of what Italian pinot grigio offers.  But the wine also offered up a good balance of fruit.  In fact I would probably choose this wine over some average quality Italian pinots.  And at this price point, it offers up a fairly good value.

A Salute!

Disclosure: These wines were received as samples.

Here’s a roundup of the 7 Pinot Grigios/Pinot Gris that we recently reviewed.  This gives you a quick reference of how they all stacked up.

To be honest, I wasn’t that excited about doing a Pinot Grigio series.  Let’s face it, cheap Pinot Grigio can often leave something to be desired.  But I was pleasantly surprised with the results.  In the blind tasting there was only one clunker, which I didn’t post a review of because it appeared to be a flawed bottle.  So, all of these were acceptable… or even better, downright good wine!

Top Picks

There were actually four different wines that scored an 88, but of those my personal favorite was the Lucien Albrecht Cuvee Romanus.  All of the 88 wines were stylistically a little different, but all good.  The Lucien Albrecht had an intense apple flavor and crisp acidity.  It really shows why Alsatian wine has the good reputation that it does.

Although the Lucien Albrecht was my favorite, it also costs $19.99, making it an expensive pick for many cheap wine seekers.  And so, the best bargain wine goes to Carmenet, also scoring an 88 but only costing $11.00.  The Carmenet Pinot Grigio has everything I expect of a California Pinot Grigio.  It has nice perfumey aromas along with crisp lime and pear flavors.  It’s refreshing and clean.

Here’s the full lineup of the wines reviewed and how they scored.

I have one more wine to review for my Pinot Grigio series, this one from Motos Liberty.  Now to be clear, the past six Pinot Grigio/Gris reviews were all from a blind tasting, but this one was not.  I received this bottle as a sample a couple days after I did the blind tasting.  Rather than leave it sitting on the shelf until I had enough PG for another blind tasting, I decided to go ahead and taste it so it could be part of this series, even if not tasted blind.

Motos Liberty is a new wine brand from a brand spanking new wine company, Panther Rock Wine Company.  But the owners of the company aren’t a new name to wine, they are the fourth generation of descendants of the Franzia family that first produced wine in the US in 1896.  Ironically, while that name probably sounds very familiar to you, the Franzia family has no relationship to the Franzia brand of boxed wines.  There are thirteen descendants of the Franzia family who share ownership of Motos Liberty, three of whom are managing partners: Joey, Damon and Brian Franzia.

So, how does this new wine stack up?  Good question.

I had a little fun smelling this wine.  It wasn’t so much a “wow” moment as much as a “there’s something interesting there, but I can’t put my finger on it” moment.  There is definitely a strong pear aroma, like a fresh cut Bartlett, but there’s a cooling aroma underneath that like a combination of cucumber and wet iron.  I also get a hint of honeysuckle.  There’s definitely a lot more going on here than I expected.  With all of that said, it doesn’t scream “Pinot Grigio” to me.

The palate was good, but not as interesting as the nose.  My first taste actually disappointed me as it seemed slightly flabby (i.e. lacking acidity), the acid came through a little better on subsequent tastes, but I still think it’s a touch shy.  Similar to the aromas, pear is the dominate flavor on the palate, where I also get a bit of apple, but not much more.

For the price, it’s a decent wine, although I wish the acidity were slightly more crisp.  But if you love pears, you’ll probably dig this wine.

Wine: Motos Liberty
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2008
Alcohol: 13.5%

Rating: 84
Price: $8.99

This is the second wine from Carmenet that I’ve reviewed, both reviews have been done since they were acquired by the Bronco Wine Company.  Bronco is the company behind the infamous Two Buck Chuck and dozens of other cheap wine brands.  I personally have a love/hate thing with Bronco… obviously, by the name of this website, I’m a fan of bargain wines and look for great deals.  But even if a wine costs $5 or less, if it makes me want to dump it out, it’s no bargain.  Some of the wines I’ve had from Bronco brands have been palateable, while others haven’t done the trick for me.

This is one of the good ones.  In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by this wine.  I tasted it in part of a blind tasting, so I had no idea who produced the wine, and it was good.  The other wine I reviewed from Carmenet, their Merlot, also got a good review.  So, this may be one of the better brands in the Bronco family.

The Pinot Grigio has a light straw color with a slightly green hue.  The nose is very perfumey, with floral aromas, pear, and a mineral backbone. And it has good intensity in the aromas overall.  The acidity is near perfect.  Good firm mineral characteristics on the palate layer nicely with pear, lime and subtle peach.  A hint of honey comes in on the finish, which also has a lingering citrus.  This is a nice Pinot Grigio.

Wine: Carmenet Pinot Grigio
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: 2008
Alcohol: 12.5%
Rating: 88
Price: $11.00

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Maison Lucien Albrecht has roots in Alsatian winemaking going all the what back to 1425, when Romanu Albrecht established the family in the Alsatian town of Thann, near the Swiss border.  The Albrecht family has been involved in winemaking ever since, although the family moved to Orschwir in 1698.  Needless to say, there are generations of history and experience that go into every bottle of their wine.

Alsace is known for producing exceptional white wines, and in fact about 90% of the wines produced in Alsace are white.  This is one of my personal favorite regions for white wines, and I think there are a few reasons for that.  First and foremost, the growing conditions are ideal for the varieties produced there.  But also the winemaking techniques used there tend to avoid malolactic fermentation and oak is generally avoided in favor of inert containers for fermentation.  These techniques produce wines that emphasize the flavors from the grapes versus flavors produced by over-manipulation.  The end result is often dry wines with a crisp steely acidity and floral aromatics.

Another thing you may notice about Alsatian wine is that it always comes in a tall, fluted bottle.  This isn’t just because of tradition, it’s actually by law.

The color is a light straw.  At first the nose was a little tight, but it eventually opened up.  Red delicious apple is the first aroma I notice from this wine.  There’s also a bit of apricot and a light floral aroma. The palate has much greater intensity than the nose.  Intense apple flavor and crisp acidity make this a really interesting wine.  It is like biting into a crisp, fresh red delicious apple.  I also find a bit of lemon flavor up front and soft peach on the finish.

I’ve said in the past that I’m not a big fan of Pinot Grigio/Gris, but if they all tasted like this I’d be drinking Pinot Gris more often.  This is a very nice wine.  I gave it an 88 and would have scored it higher with a little more intensity on the nose and a slightly longer finish.

Wine: Lucien Albrecht Pinot Gris Cuvée Romanus
Variety: Pinot Gris
Vintage: 2008
Alcohol: 13%
Rating: 88
Price: $19.99

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I’ve reviewed some other Barefoot wines before and I’ve shared my basic perspective on them, but for some this may be the first time visiting the site… and so, I’ll give you the quick version of my position on Barefoot.  I think Barefoot does a great job of using technology and quality control to produce adequate wines.  I have yet to have a Barefoot wine that makes me say, “wow, this is outstanding!”  But I also have yet to try one that makes me say, “yuck!”  They make some palatable wines at very affordable prices.  As a blog focused on affordable wines, I would be remiss not to review them.

I do take issue with the fact that Barefoot does not put vintages on their wines.  If you want my full rant on that, just search “Barefoot” on this site and you’ll find it.  And this Pinot Grigio is no exception to the “no vintage” issue.  In fact, you’ll notice on the label of this wine that they have a very prominent sticker boasting a Gold Medal at the 2007 Monterey International Wine Competition.  Well, I have some news for you… If you’re buying a bottle of Barefoot wine in 2009 with a sticker touting a wine competition award from 2007, it’s highly unlikely that the grapes in the bottle you’re purchasing are from the same vintage as the wine that was awarded.  And if it is from that vintage, it’s past it’s prime!

All that said, I tasted this wine in part of a blind tasting lineup.  So, my bias wasn’t able to influence the notes and rating.

The nose is soft, but has a little spiciness and a very slight mineral characteristic.  Violets, lime and very soft flint make the bouquet.  The palate is full of citrus flavors and has sufficient acidity to give make it refreshing.  Lemon, lime and apple on the palate make for a non-elegant, but enjoyable wine.  A little bit of the classic Pinot Grigio perfume comes to life on the finish.  Not a bad wine.

Wine: Barefoot
Variety: Pinot Grigio
Vintage: n/a
Alcohol: 13%
Rating: 86
Price: $6.99

Tonight’s wine is from MacMurray Ranch, where they love Pinot.  They only produce Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris.  In case you don’t already know, Pinot Gris is a) another name for Pinot Grigio and b) is related to Pinot Noir.  Both grapes, being relatives, are cool-climate varieties.  But of course, Pinot Gris is lighter skinned than Pinot Noir.

Pinot Grigio is, at it’s roots, the Italian name for the variety, but a number of producers from other regions have started using the Pinot Grigio name.  Whether it’s called Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio, wines made from this grape can vary stylistically and the Pinot Grigio name is often used to denote wines that are much lighter and less fruity—stylistically consistent with the Italian Pinot Grigio.  The style of this Pinot Gris from MacMurray is much more fruity and exciting, deserving of the Pinot Gris nomenclature.

Straw colored, this is a little darker than most Pinot Grigio/Gris in the tasting lineup where I took these notes.  The nose has a nice spicy and floral characteristic.  It’s almost herbal, like arugula and lemon, with a hint of pear and apple.  The palate brings intense fruit flavors (well, intense for a Pinot Gris) and strong acidity.  Apple, pear, lemon and honeydew melon flavors make this quite enjoyable.  Melon, lemon and a hint of peach linger on the finish.

At $20, this is at the upper-end of our price range, but I found this to be a good wine.

Wine: MacMurray Ranch
Variety: Pinot Gris
Vintage: 2008
Alcohol: 13.9%
Rating: 88
Price: $20.00

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