You’ll never think of Pinot Grigio the same again.

Pinot Grigio is not just the zippy mouth-moisturizer you might have assumed. There are actually 3 main types that have some notable differences between them. Let’s take a closer look at the ‘gray’ grape, Pinot Gris.

3 Styles of Pinot Grigio white wine glass

The 3 Main Types of Pinot Grigio

Minerally & Dry

Fruity & Dry

Fruity & Sweet (Alsatian)

TIP: Pinot Gris & Pinot Grigio are interchangeable. However, it’s useful to know that Pinot Gris implies a fruity ‘French’ style and Pinot Grigio to suggest a drier “Italian” style.

Minerally & Dry Pinot Grigio

This style is most famous from the northern parts of Italy and traverses the foothills of the Alps nearly all the way from Italy through Austria and even Romania, Slovenia and Hungary. The mountains are a powerful force on the agriculture, insuring that the grapes keep their high acidity.

Expect exceptionally dry whites that pair perfectly with mussels, french fries and hot summer days. This style is the quintessential ‘Pinot Grigio,’ loved for its simplicity, ‘lack of fruit’ and sometimes saline quality.

Discover My Wine's Flavors

Discover My Wine's Flavors

A quick reference wheel for identifying wine aromas.

Seek Out The Style:

Regions with cooler climate tend to produce wines in this style including:

Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy

Veneto and Lombardy, Italy

Austria

Hungary

Slovenia

Romania

Pfalz, Rheinhessen and Rheingau in Germany

Okanagan, Canada

What to look for on the label

Wines are often produced in stainless steel tanks. There’s no oak aging or malolactic fermentation. It’s common to find these with lower alcohol levels (maybe between 10%–12.5% ABV).

Fruity & Dry Pinot Gris

Winemakers often choose the word Pinot Gris to describe this fruit-driven style of Pinot Gris. You’ll be able to pick out lemon, yellow apple and white peach among the flavors that you smell. This presence of more fruit in the aroma tells us that these wines grew in a more sun-friendly climate.

Besides just the fruity aromas, the wines have less intense acidity and more of an “oily” textured mouthfeel. This is because winemakers often add a special bacteria after the alcohol fermentation that “eats” sharp acids and ‘poops out’ smooth acids. This process is called Malolactic Fermentataion — where Malic acid is the harsh acid and lactic acid is the smooth oily one.

Seek Out The Style:

Several of the countries that make this style are New World wine regions:

Fruili-Venezia Guilia, Sicily, Abruzzo and Tuscany in Italy

Australia

New Zealand

Chile

California

Oregon

Washington

Argentina

What to look for on the label:

These wines are produced in stainless steel tanks or “neutral” barrels. One notable feature is that they’re often aged on the “lees.” Some wines gain additional creaminess from partial malolactic fermentation.

Fruity & Sweet Pinot Grigio

Perhaps the only place in the world that makes a quality sweeter-style Pinot Gris is Alsace, France. For centuries Alsace attempted to recreate the intensely sweet white wine called Tokaji (“toe-kye”) drunk by kings in Transylvania and the Ottoman empire (now Hungary). In fact, up until 2007, Alsace could use the words “Tokay d’Alsace” on their bottles of Pinot Gris!

Today, Alsace is one of the only regions in the world making a sweet style of Pinot Gris. With flavors of sweet lemon candy, honeycomb and honey crisp apples, winemakers apply very advanced winemaking techniques to increase the mouthfeel texture and use late harvest and noble rot grapes to maximize the flavor potential.

Seek Out This Style:

LESS SWEET: ‘Pinot Gris’ and a Grand Cru Pinot Gris

VERY SWEET: Vendage Tardives (‘late harvest’) and Sélection de Grains Nobles (‘our best ever!’)

Barley

Hops

Water

Yeast