Saint Margaret's Juice

The best Pinot Grigios from Italy give off a vibrant acidity, which is why they work so well with food. Pinot Grigio is typically an inexpensive wine, rarely oaked (frankly any oak defeats the point), therefore it pairs well with other foods - cream sauces, grilled fish, even pork. Santa Margherita is the best selling Italian Pinot Grigio in the U.S. and sells 75,000 cases, just under a million bottles, mass produced and delivered to your local grocery store. Sure, other places in the U.S. make it, most notably in California where the “Cal-Ital” varieties (I hate that phrase) do pretty well. The 2010 Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio isn’t a departure from the 2009, or any year for that matter since they aim for a consistent, successive line of palette-numbing identical wines year after year (true farming doesn’t allow this but that’s another story). So is this worth dropping a Jackson on it? Well, it doesn’t do much for a hand crafted true Pinot Grigio which excels at mild citrus and mineral flavors, acidity and a beautiful simplicity. This wine lacks the true expressive nature of what the variety should be, so do not confuse this wine with actual Pinot Grigio. There’s a weird metallic note in the back of this and frankly it doesn’t taste like much. It’s not a bad wine mind you, it’s just not Pinot Grigio.

$19.99/750 ML – 12.5% Alc.

BOOZEHOUNDZ RATING:  79 POINTS