Bigger Than Your Head, Frederic Koeppel, July 2017
"No kissy-face little princess of complacency, here’s a pinot gris from New Zealand that will make you take it and yourself seriously. It’s also quite delicious. The Mt. Beautiful Pinot Gris 2015, North Canterbury, fermented and aged in a combination of old oak barrels and stainless steel tanks, producing a pale pale gold wine that deftly balances an appealing almost lush, talc-like texture with the litheness and fleet crispness of bright acidity.
Aromas of heather and hay, roasted lemon and lemon balm, lime peel and grapefruit get a big assist from burgeoning notes of damp flint and limestone, with an ineffable wafting of lilac and graphite. On the palate, structure is the main event, fashioned along the lines of bracing salinity and seashell-chalk-limestone minerality; while squaring your shoulders for that admittedly supple onslaught — and this is a shatteringly dry wine — enjoy the tasty and attractive flavors of fresh apples and spiced pears, all aimed toward a finish of cloves, steel and grapefruit rind.
The slight tension between texture and structure keeps the wine lively and exciting. 14.5 percent alcohol. Drink through 2019 to ’21 with grilled fish, seafood risotto or, a favorite at our house, cod stew with leeks, potatoes and chorizo. Production was 1,450 cases. Excellent. About $19."
Bigger Than Your Head, Frederic Koeppel, July 2017
"No kissy-face little princess of complacency, here’s a pinot gris from New Zealand that will make you take it and yourself seriously. It’s also quite delicious. The Mt. Beautiful Pinot Gris 2015, North Canterbury, fermented and aged in a combination of old oak barrels and stainless steel tanks, producing a pale pale gold wine that deftly balances an appealing almost lush, talc-like texture with the litheness and fleet crispness of bright acidity.
Aromas of heather and hay, roasted lemon and lemon balm, lime peel and grapefruit get a big assist from burgeoning notes of damp flint and limestone, with an ineffable wafting of lilac and graphite. On the palate, structure is the main event, fashioned along the lines of bracing salinity and seashell-chalk-limestone minerality; while squaring your shoulders for that admittedly supple onslaught — and this is a shatteringly dry wine — enjoy the tasty and attractive flavors of fresh apples and spiced pears, all aimed toward a finish of cloves, steel and grapefruit rind.
The slight tension between texture and structure keeps the wine lively and exciting. 14.5 percent alcohol. Drink through 2019 to ’21 with grilled fish, seafood risotto or, a favorite at our house, cod stew with leeks, potatoes and chorizo. Production was 1,450 cases. Excellent. About $19."
