The Next Big Thing?
By Susy Atkins
Is Pinot Gris the trendiest white grape of the moment? Yes, according to many New Zealand wine-makers, who can't cram new Pinot Gris vines into their stony soil quickly enough.
Kim Crawford, wine-maker at Coopers Creek in Auckland, says: "If I could pick one grape variety to succeed in the next few years in New Zealand it would be Pinot Gris. The spicy, honeyed aromatics can be amazing, and it suits our climate because it ripens relatively early."
Martinborough on the North Island, and Marlborough on the South, look like the most promising regions for the grape. The first to pioneer Kiwi Pinot Gris was Dr Neil McCallum of Dry River winery in Martinborough. Dry River Pinot Gris Selection 1996, a dessert wine, claimed second place in an exciting tasting of Pinot Gris conducted recently by the consumer magazine Wine.
Wine's tasting excluded Pinot Gris from Alsace - the grape's traditional home. Instead, the panel (which I joined) set out to discover how well other countries were getting on with a grape variety that, at its best, exudes a flavour of ripe citrus with rich hints of cream, spice and smoke.
The tasting unearthed plenty of disappointing wines, particularly from Italy. But there were several stars, among them a fabulous Auslese from Mller-Catoir, in the Pfalz, Germany (where the grape is known as Grauer Burgunder), and some extraordinary aged Romanian dessert wines. Brown Brothers in Victoria, Australia, put forward a "very good" varietal with "lime, honey and lemon" character, and other impressive wines came from the St Helena and Grove Mill wineries of New Zealand.
Now another doctor is turning to Pinot Gris: Dr Andrew Pirie of Piper's Brook, who has started producing both Gewrztraminer and Pinot Gris in Tasmania. Pirie is experimenting with a range of Alsace-influenced wines with fresh, spicy flavours, and a truly European elegance. He unveiled them in the UK at the recent Australia Day tastings. Tasmania's cool climate has served him well.
The Wine panel concluded that Alsace still wears the Pinot Gris crown, but was optimistic about the chances of the grape doing well outside that region, particularly in Germany and New Zealand. Certainly, it's hard to imagine a keen wine consumer taking against the fulsome, fruity character of good Pinot Gris, which, fortunately for restaurateurs, is an exceptionally food-friendly wine.
One of the Wine panelists recommended matching the drier wines with "rich creamy cheese, crab and lobster, smoked fish or white meat". All in all, and despite the vagaries of fashion, this is a grape that could well turn out to be the Next Big Thing. n
