WineAccess, Inc.

Description

Alsace Pinot Gris The third grape in Alsace's holy trinity, Pinot Gris is far more likely to produce a fat, oily, even viscous wine than a racy, high-pitched drink. Pinot Gris (also known as Pinot Grigio), is characterized by rather exotic aromas and flavors of peach and apricot, tropical fruits, orange peel, butter, nut oil, smoked meat, spices, earth, and honey. As with Geurztraminer, traditional versions of Pinot Grigio are reminiscent of ripe Chardonnay . In the hands of some producers, they are among the richest white wines of France .

The trademark of wines from Tuscany , and especially those from the region of Chianti, was once the fiasco. This straw-colored flask may carry associations of lengthy rustic meals out on the portico of a villa in the Tuscan countryside, but this romantic reverie must be interrupted with a burst of reality-- the wine in these flasks, dominated by the Sangiovese grape, wasn't very good. This declaration isn't an indictment of Sangiovese, however. The blame doesn't lie on the grape, but rather on indifferent winemaking.

Different from Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley, classic Sancerre has always been characterized by vibrancy, steeliness, minerality and pronounced Sauvignon pungency. Its fruit profile tends to the citric, evoking lemon, lime and grapefruit. In riper years, or in the hands of some modernist producers, the wines are riper and rounder, more suggestive of orchard fruits like pear, quince, and apple. Whichever style one prefers, most aficionados agree that Sancerre should always be a wine of elegance, precision, and focus rather than volume and weight.

The Riesling grape may scare away some wine novices. In Germany , where the grape reaches its finest expression, labels hew to a rigid, abstruse set of classifications, leaving newcomers with little idea what they may be looking at. Furthermore, many wine drinkers' early experiences with sweet wines from Germany (think Blue Nun), have not been especially rewarding. We say that it's your loss if you continue to fear the tall, flute-shaped bottles. Sweet does not necessarily equal cloying, and not all Rieslings are even sweet.

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