Vinoculation

There is something about NZ Pinot Gris that I have, until now, not appreciated. The clean, conventional yet boring wines bottled and consumed within a year of vintage have been the extent of my New Zealand Pinot Gris tasting of late. I just opened a Neudorf Moutere 05’ Pinot Gris. I am bias and believe that the sun shines on Neudorf in a beautiful vein, but supposed prejudice aside; I was still enthralled with this wine.

I served it because I had a guest who was arriving late to a dinner party and  wanted white…. we had all moved on to red 5 wines ago but she had the decency to ring ahead to announce her arrival with a “white please” when asked her poison of preference.

She arrived, and in true beer guzzler fashion proceeded to engulf a glass of the afore mentioned elixir. Yet I could see it in her non-wine addicted eye, that turning point, where one says to oneself… ah I understand.

I was drinking a biodynamic single vineyard Tempranillo/Syrah from Hood River in Oregon which was spectacular in its own right. But the nose on the Pinot Gris pulled me right back into white tasting mode.

Waxy, not in the beeswax kind but in the generic candle wax aroma. Lashings of honey, ripe apples, pear and fresh stone fruit also flesh out the nose. The delicious waxy notes were accompanied by mineral and moss highlights which carried though both nose and palate and reminded me of older Hunter Valley Semillon.

Now thinking this to myself I recalled being blind tasted a few months ago on another Pinot Gris from NZ, again an 05 but from Isabel Estates… wow again the same waxy, honey, delisiousness, that is hard to describe, but, I know I like it!

 I blind tasted it as Hunter Semillon…go figure.

I then started ruminating on how these were the only NZ pinot Gris I had tasted that owned even 2 years of age.  Excuse my ignorance but do all NZ Gris go waxy and fascinating after 3 years in bottle? Or have I struck the exceptions to the rule? Both blew my socks off especially for the price I need to pay for the pleasure of their company… wow factor for little financial outlay. If most well grown NZ Pinot Gris ages and develops character like these beauties then I’M BUYING MORE!!!