Baron De Hoen Pinot Gris Sonnenglanz

This past Friday was unbelievably hot and with my kitchen out partially out of order due to the renovations going on, my wife, Kathy suggested that we get in some Chinese take-out for dinner. This sounded great as I really didn’t want to BBQ in the heat. Upon bringing the food home, it was decided that we’d have a bottle of wine to go with it.

Chinese food is a pain in the ass to pair as it has such a wide range of flavours – sweet, spicy, sour, salty. Trying to find a wine that can handle it is always interesting. The best match I have found so far is a semi-sweet Riesling.

I remembered that I had a bottle of Pinot Gris in the small fridge in the basement and decided to give it a shot. The Pinot Gris was a 2004 Baron de Hoen “Sonnenglanz” Pinot Gris from Alsace. I bought this at the LCBO some time ago for around $27. The LCBO no longer has stock or even lists this wine on their website. The Wine Spectator hasn’t reviewed it ether.

I gave the wine a quick nose and was getting floral and fruit notes off of it but found I couldn’t be more precise than that. Trying a sip of the wine I found it had nice fruit on the tongue, good acidity and a mild bitter taste on the finish. The bitterness reminded me of Gewürztraminer as it usually has that bitter finish to it. It wasn’t as bitter as a Gewürztraminer and got me thinking this wine could almost be described as “Gewürztraminer light”.

With the food it wasn’t a bad match but occasionally I got a touch of sharpness with it. The semi-sweet Riesling is still a better match for Chinese cuisine.

To conclude, not a bad wine but even if the LCBO did have stock, I wouldn’t be rushing out to get another bottle of it.

Cheers!

Mark