This pinot grigio gets its kick from a high mountain range

Fruit that spends a longer period of time ripening before harvest is more likely to produce what experts refer to as a “balanced” wine with high-quality potential. This pinot grigio from the Dolomite Alps, a range of mountains that dominate the landscape of Italy’s far northeastern frontier with Austria and Slovenia, makes a perfect, succulent example.

Most Italian pinot grigios are grown in the warm, flat, and fertile low-lying expanse of the Italian Venezie region, inland from Venice, where fruit grows quickly and is snipped from the vine early to preserve its refreshing acidity and to prevent excessive development of alcohol in the final wine. This wine’s grapes were grown in Trentino at much higher elevation, in the white grape vineyards that line the subalpine valleys of northern Italy’s ski country.

Up here, lower temperatures slow down fruit’s development, adding weeks to the grape’s transition from bud to flower to berry, and extending the critical phases of the ripening process as well. This allows winemakers to delay harvest just long enough to achieve more opulent fruit flavors without losing too much acidity or generating too much alcohol. The resulting wine is a shade richer in texture and considerably more flavorful than your average pinot grigio, with a flavor range that pushes past the grape’s generic apple taste.

Faint aromas of jasmine tea lead into flavors of riper and juicier tree fruits like nectarines and red Bartlett pears, conjuring the experience of those messier orchard fruits that might dribble down your chin when you take a bite.

$15.69; 13% alcohol

PLCB Item #4097

Sale price through Feb. 26 – regularly $17.69

Also available at:

Joe Canal’s in Marlton, $14.99, marltonjoecanals.com; and Canal’s Liquors in Pennsauken, $17.99, canalsliquors.com.