Speaking of Verdicchio

originally posted by Luca Mazzoleni:

I challenge you to find a single wine shop or restaurant in Italy that has this PG (or any PG from N/E Italy) on their wine list or assortment.
No doubt the wine industry in the Veneto / Friuli region of N/E Italy has been an all-too-eager 'partner in crime' in this whole PG connection...but in all fairness the big guns in the US wine distribution industry have an equal share of guilt and shame for engineering this absurd PG craze in the 1990s and 2000s (and they likely made a bigger profit out of it than the producers themselves).
A classic case study in wine marketing if there ever is one, for sure.

Really? No one in Italy drinks or likes Pinot Grigio from Jermann, Walch, Terlan, etc.? I've always thought they were quite good, even if not my favorite wines from each producer.
 
originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Luca Mazzoleni:
originally posted by MLipton:
No great shock. Italian whites Long had a bad reputation and the ocean of cheap, insipid Pinot Grigio has done nothing to change that perception.
Mark “Pigato-boy” Lipton

...but in all fairness the big guns in the US wine distribution industry have an equal share of guilt and shame for engineering this absurd PG craze in the 1990s and 2000s (and they likely made a bigger profit out of it than the producers themselves).
A classic case study in wine marketing if there ever is one, for sure.

Sensory research has shown that dry, light, no-oak, subdued flavor white wines have strong appeal to a large population of drinkers with highly sensitive palates.

You are not serious, 'course. Obviously there is not a large number of consumers with sensitive palates, for wine or other food products. Subdued flavor? That means overcropped, cold-stabilized, fined, and filtered (maybe even carbon filtered to reduce flavor and color). In other words, stripped.

This is based on quantitative, statistically significant sensory research on representative consumer samples by experts in the field. Two different projects in the case of white wine (one specifically focused on PG). But this result has showed up in other categories, such as olive oil.

I think your reaction is due to my failure to define "sensitive". I didn't mean discerning, educated or "accurate" palates in the sense of ability to identify various flavor components. I meant people for whom most sensory input is registered very strongly, e.g. what you or I might call a moderate amount of tannin or soft tannin seems intense and bitter to them. This is a significant minority of the population. And yes (sigh), that can often mean preference for overcropped, overfiltered, "stripped" products.
 
originally posted by Lee Short:
originally posted by Luca Mazzoleni:

I challenge you to find a single wine shop or restaurant in Italy that has this PG (or any PG from N/E Italy) on their wine list or assortment.
No doubt the wine industry in the Veneto / Friuli region of N/E Italy has been an all-too-eager 'partner in crime' in this whole PG connection...but in all fairness the big guns in the US wine distribution industry have an equal share of guilt and shame for engineering this absurd PG craze in the 1990s and 2000s (and they likely made a bigger profit out of it than the producers themselves).
A classic case study in wine marketing if there ever is one, for sure.

Really? No one in Italy drinks or likes Pinot Grigio from Jermann, Walch, Terlan, etc.? I've always thought they were quite good, even if not my favorite wines from each producer.

Obviously this is complete hyperbole. While Santa Margherita does not really play any role, many extensive wine lists in Italy have a few PGs from Northern Italy.
 
Obviously this is complete hyperbole. While Santa Margherita does not really play any role, many extensive wine lists in Italy have a few PGs from Northern Italy.

Excuse me? No hyperbole at all. I meant to say what I said. I am 44, I live in North Italy and I know the wine list of hundreds of restaurants, trattoria and enoteca/vineria throughout North Italy. I assure you Pinot Grigios from Friuli or Veneto are by no means a 'staple wine' or 'mainstay wine' or classic 'aperitif wine' here, in the way Soave, Lugana, Arneis, Muller-Thurgau, Friulano (was Tocai) or Ribolla are, and have always been.
And I am talking North/East Italy because forget about the rest of the country, restaurant owners and wine shop owners don't even know or care about Pinot Grigio.

Need further proof that PG is quite irrelevant for our own domestic market? Take a look at how many PG were awarded 'Tre Bicchieri' by Gambero Rosso this year, vis a vis Pinot Bianco (a grape variety that is certainly held in higher consideration here in North Italy by both wine lovers and the producers themselves, and for good reasons).

Alto Adige South Tyrol (0 Pinot Grigio, 5 Pinot Bianco)

Veneto (0 Pinot Grigio)

Trentino (0 Pinot Grigio)

Friuli (1 Pinot Grigio, 5 Pinot Bianco)

And Gambero Rosso is a wine guide that takes in consideration the export dynamics in their own peculiar 'wine awards' algorithm. Go figure the place PG occupies in the other Italian wine guides.
 
originally posted by Luca Mazzoleni:
Excuse me? No hyperbole at all. I meant to say what I said. I am 44, I live in North Italy and I know the wine list of hundreds of restaurants, trattoria and enoteca/vineria throughout North Italy. I assure you Pinot Grigios from Friuli or Veneto are by no means a 'staple wine' or 'mainstay wine' or classic 'aperitif wine' here, in the way Soave, Lugana, Arneis, Muller-Thurgau, Friulano (was Tocai) or Ribolla are, and have always been.
And I am talking North/East Italy because forget about the rest of the country, restaurant owners and wine shop owners don't even know or care about Pinot Grigio.

Not being a 'staple wine" is certainly true, but quite different from your previous statement "I challenge you to find a single wine shop or restaurant in Italy that has this PG (or any PG from N/E Italy) on their wine list or assortment." It took me just a few minutes to find PG from the northeast on several online wine lists in Italy, and not even just in the north.
 
originally posted by Luca Mazzoleni:

...are by no means a 'staple wine' or 'mainstay wine' or classic 'aperitif wine' here, in the way Soave, Lugana, Arneis, Muller-Thurgau, Friulano (was Tocai) or Ribolla are, and have always been.
And I am talking North/East Italy because forget about the rest of the country, restaurant owners and wine shop owners don't even know or care about Pinot Grigio.

Setting aside PG, the stereotype is that in Italy white wines are something of an afterthought, mostly exported, mainly aperitifs or for a few seafood dishes domestically. Never true? True at one time but no longer? I assume there are significant regional differences (as with everything else there), otherwise it's hard to explain the planting patterns in some of the Northeast.
 
originally posted by Luca Mazzoleni:
Obviously this is complete hyperbole. While Santa Margherita does not really play any role, many extensive wine lists in Italy have a few PGs from Northern Italy.

Excuse me? No hyperbole at all. I meant to say what I said. I am 44, I live in North Italy and I know the wine list of hundreds of restaurants, trattoria and enoteca/vineria throughout North Italy. I assure you Pinot Grigios from Friuli or Veneto are by no means a 'staple wine' or 'mainstay wine' or classic 'aperitif wine' here, in the way Soave, Lugana, Arneis, Muller-Thurgau, Friulano (was Tocai) or Ribolla are, and have always been.
And I am talking North/East Italy because forget about the rest of the country, restaurant owners and wine shop owners don't even know or care about Pinot Grigio.

Need further proof that PG is quite irrelevant for our own domestic market? Take a look at how many PG were awarded 'Tre Bicchieri' by Gambero Rosso this year, vis a vis Pinot Bianco (a grape variety that is certainly held in higher consideration here in North Italy by both wine lovers and the producers themselves, and for good reasons).

Alto Adige South Tyrol (0 Pinot Grigio, 5 Pinot Bianco)

Veneto (0 Pinot Grigio)

Trentino (0 Pinot Grigio)

Friuli (1 Pinot Grigio, 5 Pinot Bianco)

And Gambero Rosso is a wine guide that takes in consideration the export dynamics in their own peculiar 'wine awards' algorithm. Go figure the place PG occupies in the other Italian wine guides.
 
Hey, Luca, i give you a Kiss and a hug after several years of enjoying your writing;

I hope you don't hate me to hear that I HATE most Pinot Grigio! Italian, French, whatever. It reminds me of beer every time. I'm not sure what that is but I'm curious about your opinion.

Grazia,

karen
 
originally posted by Luca Mazzoleni:
Obviously this is complete hyperbole. While Santa Margherita does not really play any role, many extensive wine lists in Italy have a few PGs from Northern Italy.

Excuse me? No hyperbole at all. I meant to say what I said. I am 44, I live in North Italy and I know the wine list of hundreds of restaurants, trattoria and enoteca/vineria throughout North Italy. I assure you Pinot Grigios from Friuli or Veneto are by no means a 'staple wine' or 'mainstay wine' or classic 'aperitif wine' here, in the way Soave, Lugana, Arneis, Muller-Thurgau, Friulano (was Tocai) or Ribolla are, and have always been.
And I am talking North/East Italy because forget about the rest of the country, restaurant owners and wine shop owners don't even know or care about Pinot Grigio.

Need further proof that PG is quite irrelevant for our own domestic market? Take a look at how many PG were awarded 'Tre Bicchieri' by Gambero Rosso this year, vis a vis Pinot Bianco (a grape variety that is certainly held in higher consideration here in North Italy by both wine lovers and the producers themselves, and for good reasons).

Alto Adige South Tyrol (0 Pinot Grigio, 5 Pinot Bianco)

Veneto (0 Pinot Grigio)

Trentino (0 Pinot Grigio)

Friuli (1 Pinot Grigio, 5 Pinot Bianco)

And Gambero Rosso is a wine guide that takes in consideration the export dynamics in their own peculiar 'wine awards' algorithm. Go figure the place PG occupies in the other Italian wine guides.

Does this count? I first came across it at Oltre, one of my favorite restaurants in Bologna.
Dario_P_PG.jpg
 
Luca-
Many years ago you wrote a list on these boards titled something like “Italian Wines I still wish to drink.” I’d be grateful if you would repost that list or, even better, post an updated one.
 
Since we're speaking of Verdicchio we must also be speaking of Lugana.

Ottella's 2015 "Molceo" Lugana Riserva is another recent moderately priced Italian that really delivers the goods. It smells like a seaside homestead with aromas of citrus peel, straw, ocean spray, wet slate, and smoke curling from the glass. A sip is an herbaceous fruit salad of fresh grapefruit, lemon, mandarin, pineapple, and Mirabelle plum. Yet it refuses to be defined as a fruity wine. It finishes with a hint of green almond, and nice length. There’s a lot of wine packed into that little bottle.
 
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