Pinot Gris

Tasting the Kelley Fox Skin Contact Pinot Gris 2017 – An Exciting Benchmark Example From Oregon…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ Leave a comment

2017 finally broke the pattern of the unusually warm vintages in Oregon since 2011. The winter rainfall and snowpack were excellent and the spring was generally wetter and cooler than average. Bud bloom in the Maresh Vineyard began around 22nd June and most of July was warm and even with morning clouds burned off by the afternoon. One could feel the ocean coolness behind the summer warmth. 

By 23rd August, veraison had begun in most of the blocks and by 28th August, during the return of hot weather, it was 80-100% complete. Mid-September brought cooling and some pre-harvest rain with the average highs being 19.4 degrees C the last ten days. Blocks at Maresh were picked in early October.

Kelley reduced the usual whole cluster usage to 0% for the Maresh Vineyard Pinot Gris in 2017 making the wines extra elegant, bright and perfumed with low alcohols.

Kelley Fox Wines Maresh Vineyard Pinot Gris, Dundee Hills, Oregon, 12.8 Abv. 

A fascinating copper blood orange tinted Pinot Gris produced from the fruit of vines planted on their own rootstock in 1991 in the northeast corner of the Maresh Vineyard. The wine saw 14 to 16 days of skin contact and elevage in a concrete amphora tank for 5 months with malolactic completed. The bouquet is loaded with dusty minerality of volcanic basalt, wet slate and crushed rocks complexed by pithy strawberry, red cherry skin aromatics, ripe quince and sweet ripe figs. Beautifully fresh, vibrant and light on its feet, the wine tiptoes across the palate with smokey sappy spice, resinous blood orange nuances, quince purée and wet river pebble minerality. There are delicate pithy phenolics from a fortnight of skin contact but also such a bright purity and crisp linearity. More complex and vinous than a lookalike Rose wine, this is a wonderful creation with an earthy savoury salinity that finishes with a long lasting complexity and intrigue. Lovely wine.

(Wine Safari Score: 93+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Another Sensational Run of Boutique Wines from Carsten Migliarina – Tasting His Impressive New Releases…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ Leave a comment

I recently caught up with winemaker Carsten Migliarina to taste through his new releases. Always working on a variety of different wines that usually includes a Grenache and a Syrah, Carsten also normally has at least one new one-off boutique experimental bottling on the go at any time. One year it may be a dry Riesling, this year it’s a fabulous Pinot Gris. Most impressively, the quality across the board is of such a high standard that when Carsten talks about tweaking a wine to improve it, it means no more than freshening up the label!

But sommelier turned winemaker Carsten also manages to consistently capture and bottle such impressive varietal purity and typicity that I can only put this down to his hidden Germanic subconscious that unrelentingly demands absolute precision without loosing any excitement, character or drinkability. Cartsten’s newest releases once again follow this characterisation and are definitely worth tracking down on release as almost 70% of his wines are exported globally.

Pinot Gris 2017 Grey Matters, WO Stellenbosch, 13.9 Abv.

50% Barrel fermented – wild, 50% Tank – wild and inoculated. Just 2,500 bottles. Cool, vibrant, super fresh style. Loaded with crystalline white peach, green apple and cream soda but with extra complex spicy pithy aromatics from 30 mins skin contact in the rolling press. There is very little tooty fruity frivolity but more mineral lemon and lime intensity and incredibly fine purity. Great balance and impressive intensity, this is a fabulous expression of this rare variety in SA!

(Wine Safari Score: 92+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Chenin Blanc 2017, WO Stellenbosch, 13.1 Abv.

Just 2,500 bottles produced. Roughly 35 year old vines from a single vineyard, 100% barrel fermented with older shaven oak. Wild yeast ferment. An intense nose with lemon biscuit, vanilla pod spice and dusty yellow apples, aniseed and pineapple confit. Beautifully textured, massive concentration of apple pastille, pink musk, white peach, dusty talc minerality and exotic quince and yellow citrus depth. A classic cool style signature Migliarina wine that when you open it, it’s hard to stop until the bottle is finished. This is very special and very impressive.

(Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Chardonnay Single Vineyard 2016, 13.5 Abv. WO Elgin

2,500 bottles produced. Barrel fermented, 35% new oak from France, Romania, Hungary and USA. A beautifully sleek fine Chardonnay with great breadth and depth and superb complexity. Nose is multi-dimensional with creamy vanilla pod, lemon biscuits, creme brûlée and toffee able with 14 months in oak with no malo. Expert oak interaction, beautiful acidity and chalky minerality that doesn’t seek to be bludgeoned to death with oak. This Elgin fruit screams cooler climate, minerality, subtlety with no fining and no filtration. Lovely lime cordial tension, linearity and a long, harmonious, classical finish. A supremely distinguished effort.

(Wine Safari Score: 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Grenache 2017, WO Wellington, 13.5 Abv.

100% Varietal Grenache, single vineyard aged 7 months in shaven oak, untoasted. Inoculated, whole berry, destemmed, cold fermented (max 13 to 20 deg) taking 3 weeks to finish fermentation. Incredibly pretty wine with fragrant raspberry, strawberry, red cherry perfume notes with an almost Cinsault-like Turkish delight, marzipan, parma violets and blood orange lift. Carsten’s mantra is not to “spoil” the wine with too much savoury sappy spice and oak, hence no whole bunch and the obsessive focus on purity, precision and perfume. The saline, cassis, oyster shell notes are incredible. A profound expression.

(Wine Safari Score: 93/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Parquet 2016 Syrah – Carignan – Grenache, 13.5 Abv.

84% Syrah, 7% Carignan, 9% Grenache. Syrah 8 to 10 weeks on skins, 2017 Grenache blended in. One barrel of Swartland Carignan 2016. Beautiful dark, alluring wine with sweet black pepper corns, savoury cured meats, black berry spice, black olive and black plum style that eventually meanders back to brightness and purity with the use of the 2017 Grenache addition. Another crystalline style, total focus and purity, with component parts beautifully pieced together. So cool, pure and fresh, with great precision that is a manifestation of Carstens own personality. Lovely wine.

(Wine Safari Score: 93+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Syrah 2015 WO Stellenbosch, 13 Abv.

10 weeks on the skins. 14 months in old oak, inoculated, unfined, unfiltered, destalked, destemmed, with initially whole berry cold fermentation in tank allowing malo on skins in tank. Pure Helderberg expression with delicious blackberry, iodine, coriander and lavender and subtle hints of fraise des bois. A medium bodied, classical old world European style wine with subtle restrained fruit, black berry salinity, some accessibility in young but embroidered with complex mineral pithy tannins and a fresh linear finish. Still taut, broody and tight, the finish will become naturally embellished with extra time in bottle. A great vintage and a very serious, “adults only” top shelf effort.

(Wine Safari Score: 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Tasting the New Zealand Wines of Rising Marlborough Star Jules Taylor…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ Leave a comment

I don’t seem to write about New Zealand wines enough. Is it perhaps because I don’t often get surprised or stopped in my tracks by an exciting new release Pinot Noir, Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc? Possibly. Don’t get me wrong, I love all New Zealand wines including commercial supermarket Sauvignon Blanc brands etc. But they don’t necessarily inspire me to wax lyrical and share them with followers of my blog.


But yesterday the lovely Jules Taylor hosted a tasting of her full range of wines for me. Jules launched her own label in 2001 and made her first batch of Jules Taylor wines including 200 cases of Pinot Gris and Riesling. Today those 200 cases have been joined by Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Rose, Gruner Veltliner and Arneis.


Jules produces very smart wines as you’d expect from someone who previously worked at Cloudy Bay and Kim Crawford Wines, both kiwi Icon brands. But her Jukes Taylor wines are much more artisanal and characterful with real complexity and attention to detail. I’m especially a big fan of her Gruner Veltliner but it was her 2016 Pinot Gris that unexpectedly just blew me away.


Made from new clone M2 and 52B Pinot Gris planted in the last 6 years, they produce beautiful little berries which are full of concentrated flavours of spice & stone fruits. The grapes for this Pinot Gris come from the Lower Wairau, Southern Valleys and Lower Dashwood sub regions of Marlborough. A portion has been hand-harvested with the balance picked in the cool of the morning by machine. The machine harvested portion of this fruit was fermented with selected commercial yeast strains chosen to enhance the natural flavours of the variety. The hand-picked portion was whole bunch pressed, then wild fermented with natural yeasts. This also underwent a full malolactic fermentation. Lees stirring in the barrel has also added an extra textural component to the wine. The wine was blended, stabilised and bottled in July 2016.


Jules Taylor Pinot Gris 2016, Marlborough, 13.5 Abv. (RRP £16-17pb)

A beautiful textural Pinot Gris with lucious pear, white peach, tangerine peel and aromatic stone fruit flavours. The partial wild ferment imparts extra richness, and exotic complexity while the lees stiring contributes a complimentary nutty, biscuity minerality. There is no flabby fat on this taught, beautiful Pinot Gris with the wine remaining almost bone dry at 1.8 g/l RS. The palate is layered and textured but underpinned throughout by a vibrant crystalline acidity and great fruit intensity. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a kiwis Pinot Gris this much in years! 

(Wine Safari Score: 93/100 Greg Sherwood MW)