How gris was my valley? “’Pinot Gringo’, is that a Mexican grape, Max?”, Miss L inquired wittily and gigglely. “Grigio, Dear, pinot grigio, the gringo version of pinot gris if you were French or American”. Yeh, while the Yanks may be happy to give up French fries for the Freedom version, it is just as well they cling to some semblance of culture in the guise of wine. They opt for the French version over the Italian (grigio), since Americans no longer view anything Italian as culture, after The Godfather series of movies, and rightly so, the third one was a shocker. Still, it’s a bit of a worry when the only concession to culture a society makes is pronouncing the word ‘ambience’ as if it were spelt with an ‘O’ and Mazda as ‘Marzda’, both of which should be, but in the land of ‘Notter Dame’ and ‘ban-anna’, why are these the only two? The cultural sponge, Vinous Austalianus, on the other hand, would never use ambience and Mazda in the same sentence, yet we absorb both versions of pinot gris/grigio. This is possibly only because the English, ‘pinot grey’, sounds more like a hair dye than a grape, but frankly, more likely because we couldn’t be bothered, and anyway we see all foreign words as a bit of a cultural boost, no matter origin and pronunciation. Regardless, for grapes that didn’t even show up on the statistical radar three years ago, pinot gris and pinot grigio are doing alright. The pair are probably now as popular and prolific as sav blanc. Sometimes that’s not a bad comparison. Equally you will often find them hunting in pairs as winemakers have a bob each way on the Italian and French styles. Barrymore Estate Mornington Peninsula 2003 Pinot Grigio, $20ish. If you’re feeling a little grigio around the gills this is not for you. It’s one of those fishy oily types that needs some stinky oily fishy foodstuff to go with it. I didn’t have any handy. 6/10. Barrymore Estate Mornington Peninsula 2003 Pinot Gris, $20ish. This is more like it. Still a gutsy white wine with a bucketload of flavour but altogether more palatable by virtuous fruit. Stinky fish would still be fine, but you could also have it on its own. 8.2/10. I could swear there’s anise in there somewhere too. T’Gallant 2003 Pinot Grigio, $20. The dips were oily, the barbecue was oily, the salad was oily, gawd, look out if we’d got an oily white wine too. Thankfully it was not. Bright and cheery, simple yet stylish. Delicious stuff. Just so...phisticated. 9/10. T’Gallant 2002 Tribute Pinot Gris, $27. A tribute to Mornington Peninsula pinot gris pioneer John Sargent, more fancy stuff from the awkwardly named Mornington mob, but as good as it was, it wasn’t up to the head turning talent of its cheaper brethren. 8.5/10. Sirromet Vineyard Selection Queensland Pinot Gris, 2003, $? One of those in-betweeny sorts of things which on day one is lovely but the following day is a bit more oily than would be perfect. Like Queensland, beautiful one day, grissy the next. Finish it off quickly. 8/10.