Finally a Pinot Grigio, actually two

Finally a Pinot Grigio wine, actually two. As you have probably noticed until now, we did not have a pinot grigio wine in our portfolio despite its popularity. From our beginnings, we never followed the trends, it took us years to find a great appassimento wine. We only import a product, whether a wine or food, if we think that it is a great product, if we wanted to import just a white wine labelled as pinot grigio we could have long time ago, the wine is now made all over Italy, but we haven’t.

We always wanted to find a Pinot grigio that was different, a wine not only pleasant to drink but a wine with depth, structure, elegance, a wine that had much more than the name on the label. Pinot grigio wine prices vary from £4 to over £30 with thousands in between so it is its quality, from tasteless, flavourless to great, complex white wines, still the label would only say “Pinot Grigio”.

In the last few years we have tasted hundreds of them, from Pinot grigio delle venezie , and if you follow my blog you know my opinion on Italian appellations is, to wines outside the appellation region but unfortunately we could not find any we loved, any we would drink ourselves.

When we decide to add a new wine, or any other product, to our range, we want to be excited about it, we are not looking for an ok, passable, wine. The wine has to be fantastic, we have to really love it. Adding a pinot grigio just because it sells, it is just not us.

For us is about finding the perfect match, a great wine and winery we can work with, a winery that shares our values, a winery that share our philosophy, a small, independent winery - we want to be able to talk to the owner, the winemaker, not the sales manager.

After several years without a Pinot Grigio, when looking for a Pinot Nero to add - another grape and wine we love - we stumbled into these two great wineries and wines. We could have added only one but despite coming from the same region, the wines could not be more different. You will notice that none of them belong to the “delle Venezie” DOC appellation and both are from Trentino Alto Adige, one region on the Italian map, two different areas (Trentino and Alto Adige) in reality.

We believe that the best Italian Pinot Grigio come from either Trentino Alto Adige or Friuli Venezia Giulia, these are the regions for Pinot Grigio wines with dept, structure, elegance. The Pinot grigio delle Venezie appellation includes good wine as well, but they are more on the easy drinking side, simpler wines. Pinot grigio grapes grown at altitude give the wine a lot more. We really love both wines and we apologise if it took us that long to finally add a Pinot grigio, but we can say it was worth the wait and hope that now that we finally stock Pinot Grigio, you will enjoy them as much as we do