Pinot Grigio or Pinot Gris

The Other Pinot

Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio is a good change of pace for most of our clubs who are heavy on the reds. The grape itself is actually a relative of Pinot Noir so you red lovers should feel right at home here. Actually, the grape has the same DNA but mutated long ago to grow in a different color. Add that to your trivia bank. However don't expect to smell much because this wine is surprisingly low in aroma so you're going to have to hunt for the bouquet.

This wine varies greatly from region to region. Some prefer Pinot Grigio from TreVenezie in Italy. It is light and frivolous and easy to drink. There's nothing serious about this wine at all, it's just a great bottle to open up for a picnic. It is consumer friendly however and is sure to please most palettes. Italians are big red drinkers as a rule so their attention is usually spent perfecting that science. Don't get us wrong, it is good if you are hot and thirsty but not expecting much complexity.

Pinot Gris from Alsace, France has a much more complex flavor. The whites from Alsace tend to be taken quite seriously as one of the only wine regions in the world that produces predominantly white wines. The only red grape varietal grown here is its cousin, Pinot Noir. To note, Alsace was one of the first wine regions to list the varietal on its wine bottles, rather than the region as done in other parts of France. They also frown upon blending their grapes, taking a pure version of a wine to heart. Their Pinot Gris is dry and sweet as are most of the wines from the region. This means basically that you are drinking a nice crisp fruity wine with a full bodied flavor.

Pinot Gris also comes from Oregon where they were made popular in the early 1990s. Their Pinot Gris is spicy and would be a great pairing to Kathleen's Pear salad below. It is a very food friendly wine and would be a safe bet when bringing your hostess a gift on a sunny day. It was a natural for Oregon, a huge fan of Pinot Noir, to grow this relative. While it is not their top produced white wine, it is one of the favorites from Oregon, thriving on the cooler temperatures for a fuller wine.

So the moral of the story is Pinot Gris, or Pinot Grigio from Italy, has many faces. In a tasting, please try wines from all three of these regions because you really will taste the difference. We laugh in our club because we all have very different palettes and we naturally gravitated towards wines of a different region on this tasting. Email us your results please or post your comments on our blog under Pinot Gris at www.thewinoclub.blogspot.com because we'd love to hear from you!

Happy tasting and we'll see you at www.thewinoclub.com!

Sincerely,
Darcy & Stacy

Pinot Gris Food Pairing

Wino Food

A BIG Thank You goes out to our friend Kathleen , Owner of The Plantation House Restaurant in the Wine Country of Temecula, CA for the beautifully paired recipe for this crisp wine. Her Polenesian cuisine is a perfect match for the tart highlights found in Pinot Gris.

Make sure to visit their website at www.goplantationhouse.com. They are currently taking Easter Sunday reservations so hop on that quickly by calling 951-694-6088. For Groups, Catering, & Marketing call 951-694-2853. They do a lot of special events so be sure to join their email list at theplantationhouse@ca.rr.com.

The Plantation House Restaurant Pukalani Pear Salad

As the weather continues to get warmer, it is time to bring out those summer salads! The Plantation House Restaurant in Maurice Car'rie Winery has featured this summer salad since they opened a little over a year ago and it has fast become a favorite. Served with a beautiful Pinot Grigio, this Spring salad will make your tastebuds pop when the combination of goat cheese and the raspberry vinaigrette hits your mouth!

Kathleen Leonard, Owner

Recipe
1 Bag of mixed field greens
1 whole ripe Pear
½ cup of whole Macadamia nuts
¼ cup Goat Cheese
¼ cup Raspberry Vinaigrette
*We can't give you our recipe, but Girard's Walnut Raspberry Vinaigrette will be a fabulous substitute!

Wash Field Greens and set aside. Take whole macadamia nuts and place on a clean counter and crush them with a rolling pin. Set oven at 350 degrees and spread nuts out over a baking sheet. Put in the oven for five minutes until toasted. Then set aside to cool. Core fresh ripe pear and set aside. Place the mixed greens in a salad bowl to assemble. Toss the cooled macadamia nuts, goat cheese and Raspberry Vinaigrette salad dressing over the salad mixture. To finish, plate each salad individually and then thinly slice the pear over each salad. Put in the refrigerator before serving or serve immediately.

**You may consider adding sliced chicken breast or grilled shrimp to make a heartier salad.

Don't forget to visit The Plantation House Restaurant next time you're in the Temecula and say hello to Kathleen. She is a fellow Wino Club Member and deserves a toast.

Pinot Gris Quick Tasting Tips

Pinot Grigio / Pinot Gris Quick Tips

Pinot Gris is all about REFRESHMENT. There is very little to no aroma to be found in this wine and it is almost clear in appearance. Look for the following scents and flavors when tasting this wine:

Orange Blossom
Lemon
Butter
Pear
Apple
Chalk
Mineral
Almond
Steel
Flint
Honey
Honeysuckle

Look for great Pinot Grigio or Gris coming out of Venezie, Alsace, Germany, Oregon and California.

Fruity, Sweet or Dry Wines

There is often terminology thrown around that is, well, not incorrect but misleading. That is when it comes to Sweet, Fruity or Dry. Here's our attempt to clarify a little:

Fruitiness – Do not mistake fruitiness with sweetness. Tasting a beautiful dry Riesling might have a very fruity flavor and smell, but the sweet residual sugar is down to 3%, verses a very sweet Reisling as a dessert wine still carries the same fruitiness but the residual sugars are several times the amount, sometimes over 40%. A wine can carry fruit essence without being sweet. In fact, wine is made with fruit to consider that there will always be some element of fruitiness in every wine, just different types of fruit and different levels. A very fruit forward wine might be a bold Zinfandel that tastes like a cherry pie. That is not a wine that anyone would ever confuse with a sweet wine, is it?

Sweetness & Dryness – A wine can be dry and fruity or sweet and fruity but not sweet and dry. Sugar in the grapes when grown is converted to alcohol in the making of wine. If almost all the sugar is converted to alcohol, the wine is dry. If only some was converted, the wine has left over sugar, or residual sugar and is considered sweet. Understand?

Wines of Chile

It's Getting Chile in Here

Grab your hats because we're going South to the beautiful wine making region of Chile this month. Chile is considered a New World wine making region but oddly enough, or not surprising depending on how you look at it, the wine making here was perfected by the French. I'm not going to give a history lesson here but it's important to understand that the wine of Chile was started by wealthy Chilean land owners who then imported French wine makers to create the wines. Chile is the 3rd largest importer of wines into the United States and their wines can be an incredible value. This is probably because they don't have to pay for their water since it comes down directly as the snow melt from the Andes Mountains (that's a joke, really).

Chile does make some nice crisp white wines, primarily Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. While Chardonnay is produced in mass to import to the United States (as our white of choice for the moment), Sauvignon Blanc has gained ground in their production levels and is now more widely grown than their Chardonnay. Their blush wine is getting also some recognition - labeled Rosa, which might just be the wine of choice for those lovely Spring days we're anticipating any time soon.

Beautiful reds come out of Chile as well: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Carmenère. Cabernet has been the grape of choice for decades and reigns supreme. The best region for their Cabernet is the Maipo Valley in the North-Central portion of this skinny country. Quick warning: their Merlot is not always what you expect. Chilean Merlot is often blended and sometimes not even Merlot. It can be Carmenère. There is no way of telling and often even the wine maker isn't quite sure. Chile is also producing some great Syrahs which have won awards in the past over their coveted Cabernets.

So the rules of winemaking are relaxed here but their labeling is even more so. We've got all the basics like who, what, when and where. However, the only way to tell a high quality wine from a table wine might be the price. Don't turn your nose up to a great $10 bottle of wine from Chile however. Your guess can be a great one.

Happy tasting and we'll see you at www.thewinoclub.com!

Sincerely,
Darcy & Stacy

Wino Food Pairings

A BIG Thank You goes out to our friend Scott Kendig, Executive Chef at Bing Crosby's Restaurant and Piano Lounge in Rancho Mirage for the beautifully paired recipe for these exotic wines from Chile.

Make sure you visit their website at www.Bingcrosbysrestaurant.com, and the address is 71-743 A Highway 111, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270.

It really is the buzz of the Desert Area so be sure to call ahead to reserve your seats.

And by the way - the recipe is so simple that anyone really could do it... thanks again Scott!

Scott's Pork Brochettes and Shaved Fennel Salad

1 or 2 pork Loins
Cumin Coriander
Brown Sugar Mace
Fennel Spinach
Red onion 1 minced garlic clove
Salt Pepper
Vinegar 2 minced shallots (small)
Oil Lime juice
Sugar

Cut the pork loin into strips. You can either use a dry rub or add a little Olive Oil for Marinade

Combine 1/2 cup Cumin, 1/2 cup Coriander, 1/2 cup Brown Sugar, and one pinch of Mace. Either rub on pork strips or Add a 1/2 cup of oil and slather the strips.

Let sit over night.

Put Pork on skewers, BBQ and serve with the beautiful fennel salad.

Chopped Fennel Salad:

(Amounts used are dependant upon how many guests. (use your best judgment)

Shave or chop the fennel. Julienne the Spinach. Shave Red Onion. Mix in a bowl and toss with the simple vinagrette and you've got a goumet salad!

Simple Vinaigrette:

1 part lime juice
3 parts oil
1 clove minced garlic
2 minced shallots (small)
Salt and Sugar to taste
Mix together well and pour over salad.

Don't forget to visit Bing Crosby's Restaurant and Piano Lounge in Rancho Mirage next time you're in the Palm Springs area and say hello to Scott... tell him how much you loved his recipe as seen in at www.thewinoclub.com!

Wine to Buy from Chile

With wine from Chile, there is no real way to tell from the bottles what wine is quality and what wine is not. You could look to sources like the wine magazines but that takes a lot of time and effort. Well worth it if you like reading the rest of the magazine as well.

Our recommendation for quick and easy? Go to http://www.winesofchile.org/ where they have a list of winners from their competition in January. It also has some fun events that are worth reading.

Interesting tidbit to make you sound REALLY smart, the winner this year was actually a Sauvignon Blanc, the first white wine to ever win this award.