I love this variety. I don’t care what anyone says. “Useful, rather than exciting” I’ve been told. “The everyday table wine in Alsace” they say. I’ll admit, there’s better, but I just love it for that lack of seriousness. Perhaps not for the snooty wine drinker (they aren’t my type anyway), but when I started discovering wine, it was a New Zealand Pinot Blanc that made me feel like Captain Cook discovering new land.

A lovely change to the only thing I knew at the time - Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc - I was utterly seduced by the Clayridge Pinot Blanc from Marlborough. Of course, the way I was sold this wine and the setting I was in at the time may have helped. You try wines at the vineyard, or in the country of origin, it all tastes that little bit better. So I took one home and enjoyed it with the family. Despite Curious Mike suggesting it could do with a touch more acidity, everyone loved it.

Winemaker, Mike Just (pictured above - not the baby), is a direct descendant of Kind Edward III of England (we’re talking 1300’s here; how he knows this, I don’t know) and has been producing top flight wine in the region for more than a decade, including the atypical Pinot Blanc, which I was lucky enough to get my hands on.

The main characteristic of wines made from Pinot Blanc is a certain roundness of flavour, verging on sweetness, sometimes because the acidity is relatively low, thus explaining Curious Mike’s comment. These gentle wines have even fewer distinguishing marks than Chardonnay, and are generally not as full bodied. This means that yields have to be really quite low before a Pinot Blanc can stand up to barrel ageing. These are wines to be drunk young  to get the best out of the relatively low acidity, which it will have in the first few years.

Pinot Blanc is known as Pinot Bianco in Italy and is grown widely, so it produces a great variety of styles. North east Italy became famed for its Pinot Bianco in the 1980’s because it was mistaken for Chardonnay at a time when the latter was at the height of its fame. So as well as looking out for Italian Pinot Bianco, Austria, Alsace, Luxembourg, Germany, and now New Zealand, are making some classy easy drinking whites from this little magic grape.

Happy hunting!

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