Pinot Grigio imports

[stevebody]

Pinot Grigio is becoming the white of choice to replace Chardonnay with those people who habitually drank Chard for twenty+ years and have finally (Thank You, Jesus) gotten sick of it. Unfortunately, the wimpy baseline PG from the likes of Fontana Candida and Cantina Tolo have, by their larger presence, become the new "Mistake wine" - a wine that's so readily available that people never think to taste anything better. Sorta like Kendall Jackson Chardonnay (or the whole K-J line, for that matter). Tiefenbrunner makes a transcendent little PG at a great price but nobody tries it because of their dorky, Germanic name and some funny words like Alto Adige on the bottle. Ditto about half a dozen other of the better ones. I agree totally, though, about the Arneis, not to mention that consistently dazzling Greco Di Tufo from Feudi di San Gregorio, the beautiful Falesco Est!Est!Est!, and esapecially, My Lord!, the Botromagno Gravina, a 60/40 Greco/Malvasia blend that costs about $6 and will make you swoon. Italian whites are the most overlooked, misunderstood items I sell and this PG mania is actually hurting the other whites, since we Yankee dorks naturally assume that the most widely-known Italian white has to be the best. I, too, think the Oregon Grises are a cut above a lot of the Italians, and that's stunning to me to like ANYTHING out of The Land of the Burgundian Wannabes. This is just like the K-J habituation: until wine salespeople agressively POUR wines that beat their customers' knee-jerk choices, crap wine will sell. Period.