Naked wines and Pinot grigio – Part 3

Following my post about the Naked Wines’ Pinot grigio and the comments received, I thought of expanding the subject. With regard to Naked Wines, it really makes me laugh when I read their press releases about their philosophy and their mission to save us, wine drinkers, money cutting the middle men; they have plenty of money to spend in marketing and are trying to convince us that they are the champion of small wine makers around the world but they are not, and I don’t believe how people can pay that much for their wines. I have just checked their website to see if the Pinot Grigio I wrote about was still there, and noticed that, I am sure following my post, they asked the same producer to make another Pinot Grigio this time from Veneto and are saying again “We selected this PG out of a tasting of 59, with prices stretching up to £12 a bottle” using the same description previously used for the other Pinot Grigio.

Strange, isn’t it? Before the best Pinot Grigio was from Abruzzo at £5.99 and now is from Veneto, have they tasted another 52 Pinot Grigios? I let you discover what they say now about the Pinot Grigio from Abruzzo if they still stock it. What really makes me sad is that their customers really think are helping small producers. How can a small producer make wine from all over Italy? How can it be? How can’t their customers notice that the Pinot Grigio from Veneto that costs £7.99, discounted, has the same description the other Pinot Grigio had? We are offering our Pinot Grigio at £7.64, with a real save of £1.35, only for you to taste and compare with the Naked Wines’ one.

With regard to ShaunG’s comment, Alto Adige is between Veneto and Friuli and before answering your question, I think is worth mentioning that to make a good wine you need good grapes but also a skilled winemaker. I never tasted, and I will, the wine you mentioned, and I am sure it will be a very good Pinot Grigio, but in terms of regions, Alto Adige has many characteristics in common with Veneto and Friuli and I think that their Pinot Grigios sit somewhere in between the ones from Veneto and Friuli, closer to the ones from Veneto on the nose but Friuli’s on the palate. In terms of their wines being more expensive, this is mainly due to the fact that harvesting in Alto Adige is very labour intensive because the vineyards are located on the slopes of the Alps, if you haven’t been there I recommend you to visit, and very small. Obviously, manual harvesting guarantees only the best grapes are harvested, all our producers follow the same philosophy. There is more control on the quality and consequently, a better grape in the hand of a skilled wine maker, mean a better wine.

With regard to ShaunG’s other point, I have previously written about it following a taste I was invited to in Italy, it is a difficult one to answer. As ShaunG pointed out, the Pinot Grigio from Sicily is very different from the Pinot Grigio we are used to, we could not expect differently, from a region where the temperature can reach 50 degrees during the summer and to be even able to produce that sort of Pinot Grigio, the grapes need to be harvested before are fully riped to give the wine some crispness. Said that, going back to the question and my tasting, when I scored the wine, I asked myself “Am i scoring a good wine or a Dolcetto (I was tasting Dolcettos from Piedmonte)?”, my answer was “Dolcetto”, so I scored the wine low but the wine was well made and I am sure someone one else would have scored the wine for how it was made more than the wine itself, so, I would say, it is a very personal choice.