It’s not hard to find Pinot Grigio out there.  There’s a virtual ocean of it made from the flatlands of Trentino and the Veneto available for your easy-drinking pleasure.  But those inexpensive but often character-deficient PGs give the top stuff a bad name!  Up here, in the Adige Valley, high in the Dolomites, Pinot Grigio is another animal entirely…intense, characterful and a joy to drink.  Elena Walch in Tramin is a specialist in creating wonderful high-altitude PG and theirs is, like everything at this seminal cellar, is precise, focused and delicious.  Organically grown, the vineyards where this PG is grown are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen and the grapes clearly enjoyed their stay there. Weighty without weight, there’s plenty of Cara Cara orange, fennel and dried honey and citrus notes on the nose to go with its medium- to just-about-full body and long, long finish.  No wood but it carries itself like there is.  And the color!  No skin contact here (never!), but the irrepressible gris di gris of the grape shines through.  Enough character to stand up against the formidable cuisine of Alto Adige too!  A great value.