Keller Estate Winery - 2016 Pinot Gris

Today's wine comes to me from Keller Estate, located in Petaluma, Sonoma County, California, only twenty miles from the Pacific Ocean. Keller Estate was founded in 1989 by Arturo Keller, an automotive engineer from Mexico City. Since the initial purchase of 650 acres, Keller has been has been "estate" for the past-quarter century (estate meaning their wines are made from grapes on premises). Like many wineries, they are environmentally-focused and have on-site bee and bat boxes, and a herd of sheep to help keep the vineyards trimmed and clean. Today's wine is a Pinot Gris from the La Cruz Vineyards section of Keller.

You might say that "pinot gris" sounds a lot like "pinot grigio". Indeed! That's because pinot gris is the same grape as pinot grigio. It's a mutation of the pinot family, and is grown all over the world with most notable examples in France, Italy, and Australia. It's called pinot gris because of the color - a plume can develop, or "fuzz", on the grapes to give them a greyish coloring. But make no mistake, the two names are not interchangeable - they're two distinct styles of wine. According to former sommelier John French, WSET-3 and Level 2 Somme, mass-produced pinot grigio from Italy has a bright demeanor, while  high Alsatian expressions (as pinot gris) are more complex can be age worthy, up to 2 or 3 years even. 

Let's get tasting. Poured this out using my Vintorio aerator, as usual. Since it's chilled, I gave it a little longer than usual to open up. I let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes and used my hands to warm it up a bit. In the glass, it's projecting notes of bright citrus fruit - like tangerine. Deep gold, viscous.

So John was spot-on: fans of pinot grigio may be somewhat surprised to find this is significantly cleaner and more complex that what they're used to. I'm picking up some lemongrass, a touch of fresh pear, strong peach notes, and some low-key minerality with moderately low acid, actually. Some spice on the finish followed by a nice tingle on the tongue after swallowing. Most noticeably, the wine lacks the bright acidity of Italian variants and seems also to lack the touch of honey that comes with French variants. 

I got this as part of Sonoma Wine Club shipment, for $29.99, so a good price point for a nice bottle of white. John French says that serious pinot gris should be had with food, so I paired this with some chorizo and asiago pizza from Timber Pizza.