Now that the weather seems to be warming up, it is time to confront the ugly, intractable question of Pinot Grigio. Sales of these wines have grown steadily, 8 per cent year on year according to the most recent trade figures I’ve seen. They sell as much as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, and account for around 40 per cent of the Italian wine sold in the UK.
The ugly question is this: why do these wines sell so well when so many of them are awful? My eminent colleague Hamish Anderson, wine writer and buyer for the Tate restaurants, refers to the cheap specimens as “one of the world’s worst-value wines with all the flavour of alcoholic water”. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Needless to say, I am not claiming that all Italian Pinot is terrible. Some producers, especially in Friuli, make wonderful wines of great complexity. Two favourites of mine, which I tend to drink in restaurants on the whole, are the wines of Livio Felluga and Jermann.
But these are not cheap wines: the examples from these two producers cost around £20. The wines that have led the growth are cheapos, £5-£6. Reader, they do not taste good.
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