Pinot gris : le même raisin, deux styles de vin

Same grape, two traditions. Italy writes pinot grigio, France pinot gris, and Germany speaks of grauburgunder for the dry version and ruländer for the sweet one. Austria and Switzerland also use grauburgunder, Hungary says szürkebarát, Slovenia sivi pinot. In Burgundy, the old texts name it pinot beurot, and the Loire Valley knew it as malvoisie.

La date de récolte fait tout. Le grigio de plaine part tôt : robe pâle, nez de citron et de poire verte, bouche légère, finale nette, un degré d'alcool modeste. Le gris alsacien attend la pleine maturité : robe dorée, notes de coing, de miel et de fumée, matière large, parfois un reste de sucre qui arrondit la finale.

Estates readily ship their cuvées in full cases, and keeping that format lets us hold the price as tight as possible. The price shown is still the price of one bottle, with the sales format right next to it. The Zeni Pinot Grigio delle Venezie can be bought singly at €10.90, or at €10.35 a bottle in packs of three.

The skin of this grape tends towards greyish pink, almost mauve, which visually brings it close to a red variety. Left in contact with the juice for a few days, it releases its pigments and gives a coppery wine, the colour of onion skin. Friuli calls these bottles ramato; today they sit in the family of orange wines, macerated on their skins.

Both registers exist. Italy vinifies it dry in almost every case, and Germany does the same under the name grauburgunder. Alsace often leaves a few grams of sugar, sometimes a great deal on the vendanges tardives and the sélections de grains nobles. Taste a dry version first to grasp the grape, then move on to the sweet wines section.

Allow 8–9 °C for an aperitif grigio: the cold tightens the citrus and makes the palate lively. Go up to 10 or 11 °C for a mountain grigio, whose material needs a little warmth to open. The Alsace and German versions, broader, are at their best at around 11–12 °C.

A grigio from the plain is drunk within its first two years, while the fruit is still crunchy. The mountain cuvées, such as Elena Walch's Castel Ringberg, hold one to five years and gain in roundness. The rich Alsace pinots gris readily run beyond a decade and turn towards candied quince. A cool, dark cellar is all it takes.

The lively register calls for the sea: oysters, brown shrimp, sea bream carpaccio, fried fish, ceviche. The mountain register stands up to a roast fish, an asparagus risotto, a burrata. The rich versions from Alsace and Baden go with poultry in cream, veal with mushrooms, a choucroute, and work wonders on a Munster or a long-aged Comté.

Start with a grigio from the plain at around ten euros to set the aperitif benchmark, then a high-altitude grigio to feel the Alpine density: those two glasses already tell the essentials. The Italian wines section carries the tasting further, and riesling offers the most telling point of comparison.