Wine: Pinot gris sure to match

A reader wrote in December to defend the honour of pinot gris, a wine he says has been unfairly dismissed in this column as a frivolous, too-drinkable white, that I once said was the wine world's equivalent of fashion's ubiquitous black T-shirt.

My point may not have been the most flattering compliment, but it was there all the same.

We all need black T-shirts. And we all need wines like pinot gris. It's just that some of us would prefer to reach for a Chilean viognier, affordable Chablis or manzanilla sherry, on the basis that each of these wines are made with more expressive grapes than could ever be used for pinot gris.

For better or worse, if you ask white wine drinkers in New Zealand today what they want to drink, at least half will say that pinot gris tops their list.

And New Zealand winemakers are following their lead; pinot gris is now the seventh most widely-planted wine grape in this country.

It still trails a long way behind the country's top three most planted grapes. Sauvignon blanc has 37 per cent of the national vineyard area; chardonnay and pinot noir 19 per cent each. Pinot gris occupies just two per cent of New Zealand's national vineyard area.

The latest New Zealand wine industry statistics released late last year reveal pinot gris grew by 28 per cent in New Zealand vineyards between 2004 and 2005. It is predicted to increase by another 46 per cent by the end of this year to occupy three per cent of our country's vineyard area.

It is most widely planted in our largest wine region, Marlborough, with 185ha of plantings. Hawkes Bay and Otago are the next biggest pinot gris regions with respective plantings of 86ha and 70ha.

This shows New Zealand winemakers are experimenting with regions, vineyards and soil types to find those best suited to producing good pinot gris.

Rather than defending the honour of all pinot gris made in New Zealand - most are drinkable purely on the basis of residual sugar balancing their relative lack of flavour - it will be far more interesting to see what flavours this grape variety evolves to possess in the future.

Not all pinot gris - from New Zealand or elsewhere - tastes balanced, and a huge number are definitely not dry. Not that technically dry wine is the be all and end all of great wines, but it is important to realise that a hefty proportion of the pinot gris we drink is far from bone dry, often deriving its attraction from sweetness rather than from a strong defining pinot gris taste.

Let's not forget where pinot gris came from. It is the most common mutation of pinot noir. And while pinot noir is great in its own right, it is also prone to mutation and not yet given to spurning noble mutants; pinot blanc and pinot gris are the most common.

Just as the black T-shirt is not one of the wonders ever to have sprung off the catwalk, pinot gris is not one of the great grapes of the wine world.

Pinot gris, like the black T-shirt, will never make a grand fashion statement, but will ensure you always have something to match with everything else.