Most wine lovers associate pinot with pinot noir, that capricious red, thin skinned, prone-to mutate grape variety originating in Burgundy. In successful vintages well made pinot noir is unbeatable in its elegance, silky smoothness and shear flavour of berries and forest floor aromas.
Pinot noir grows in other parts of the world, but never offers the taste and texture on Burgundy wines. This is due to the terroir and innate understanding of local growers and winemakers to extract the best flavours from this fickle grape variety. It likes chalky soils, and a long growing season that is adequately warm but never too hot.
In the Champagne region pinot noir yields white or rose sparkling wines, in Burgundy red only, and tastes great in successful vintages
But there are grape varieties in the pinto family – pinot blanc, pinot meunier, pinot gris, and pinotage.
Flavourful pinot noir is always expensive but there are now some fine bottles from southern Chile, New Zealand, Oregon, California’s Carneros vineyards, Australia (specially Tasmania) British Columbia and Ontario.
The most expensive and prestigious pinot noir wines still originate in Burgundy, but several Ontario wineries have been able to produce outstanding pinot noir wines ( Le Clos Jordanne, Closson Chase, Rosehall Run, Hidden Bench, Tawse are only some that come to mind.
Pinot blanc is a mutation of pinot noir. It thrives in Alsace, northern Italy, Germany and Austria, and yields light wines to wet the appetite.
Alsatian, German and Austrian pinot blanc (weisser burgunder in German, pinot bianco in Italian) wines are full bodied and more substantial in both taste and alcohol levels than those from northern Italy.
British Columbia, Ontario, California, Chile, and Argentina produce pinot blanc wines of various intensities.
In Alsace, Hugel, Weinbach, Trimbach, and Beyer are well known for their fine pinot blanc wines.
In Italy, A. Lageder, Walch, and Hofstadter in Alto Adige produce, light, fruity pinot blancs.
In British Columbia, Nk Mip, Gray Monk, Wild Goose, and Mystick River can be relied on.
In Ontario, Konzelmann produces a fine pinot blanc.
Pinot gris (pinot grigio, Italy, grauburgunder or rulander in Germany, szurkebarat in Hungary) is a pinkish/purple-skinned variant of pinot noir that is adaptable and ripens early. It is low in acidity and can accumulate high levels of sugar. It is wide-spreading Europe due to its ability to yield high and ripen fully in cool climate regions i.e Alsace, Pfalz, Austria, Hungary, northern Italy particularly Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, New Zealand, in Patagonia Argentina, Australia, Ontario and British Columbia.
Pinot gris is offered in great stylistic diversities from delicate to sauerkraut-friendly Alsatian style and everything in between.
Alsatian pinot gris is always full-bodied and substantial, whereas Friulan and Venetian versions are light, acid-driven, and quaffable.
Pierre Sparr, Trimbach, Zind-Humbrecht, Beyer, and Hugel are well respected in Alsace for their quality and consistency.
Hungarian pinot gris (szurkebarat) from the northern shores of Lake Balaton is highly recommended.
Pinot meunier (schwarzriesling or mullerrebe in German) is yet another mutation of pinot noir. It has smaller berries and is black-skinned, yielding wines of finesse, and medium-weight and generally employed in Champagne blends. Pinot meunier yields flavourful wines, with a medium-body, earthy flavours and wild berries.
Ontario and British Columbia make some fine pinot meunier wines either white or rose.
Pinotage – South African professor of oenology Abraham Izak Perold created this cross of pinot noir and cinsaut in 1924. Presently it represents six to seven per cent of South Africa’s vineyard acreage, but is rarely planted elsewhere in teh world.
It yields earthy, leathery, herbal, smoky, cigar box, berry smelling wines which some consumers like, others loath.
The best pinotage still comes from South Africa. It is best to enjoy pinotage either very young, or cellar it for a long time, if the wine was designed to be cellared.
Beyerskloof and KWV are only two of the many South African wineries that produce pinotage.
Some winemakers blend it with cabernet sauvignon or shiraz to render the wine more gentle and round.
Available in Ontario and countries that import South African wines.

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Tags: Family, Grape, Pinot

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 06:00 and is filed under Food & Wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.