Pinot Grigio!

 The most popular wine today but often wine snobs snub it. Pinot Grigio- Mi Piace!

Of course are plenty of people with very positive feelings about Pinot Grigio. One well-known Pinot Grigio snob is Ramona Singer from the NY Housewives tv show. I started to drink Pinot Grigio when I was dating Alessandro who lived outside of Venice, Italy. I became a big fan and just recently made my own Pinot Grigio. It will be ready to drink in December just in time for the holidays.

After all, it's the most popular imported wine in this country: More than 6 million cases were sold in 2002, accounting for an impressive 12 percent of all imported wines. And those numbers have only increased: Sales of Pinot Grigio rose almost 40 percent that year and have likely grown larger yet as a boom in domestic Pinot Grigios gets under way (more than 7,000 acres of Pinot Grigio were planted in California in 2004, an increase of 20 percent from 2003). Indeed, Pinot Grigio may soon be more fashionable than Sauvignon Blanc, a grape that's been planted in just about every viable piece of vineyard land in the world (Uruguayan Sauvignon, anyone?).
 
Yet Pinot Grigio remains more consistently maligned by wine professionals and collectors than Chardonnay and Merlot combined. It's hard to find a serious wine drinker, let alone a sommelier, willing to put in a good word for the grape.

Most of these wines come from northern Italian regions like Trentino-Alto Adige. (In fact, the most popular Pinot Grigio sold in the United States, Santa Margherita, comes from the Trentino-Alto Adige, where, as the legend goes, importer Tony Terlato tried 18 different bottlings before finding the one that would win him a devoted following and a small measure of fame.)
Pinot Grigio is produced in other parts of Italy too—Umbria, Emilia-Romagna and Friuli, which is home to some of the country's best wines (as well as some of its worst). In general, Pinot Grigio is a light-bodied, high-acid, delicate white, although the top producers turn out wines that have more of everything: more intense aromas, flavor and weight—though no Pinot Grigio is ever as rich and full-bodied as a Pinot Gris, the French wine made with the same grape. Yet the Italians dominate by virtue of amount: There's a lot more Grigio than Gris

Often Pinot Grigio is served with seafood, fish and chicken. I hope you will give Pinot Grigio a try!

Best places to buy Pinot Grigio are Surdyk's in Minneapolis, and Haskell's wine shops across the Twin Cities. Both have fall and spring sales. I recommend stocking up when the sales are on. Store your wine in a cool dark place.

Cheers!

LMama