https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/food/2018-10-27/weekend-wine/

Weekend Wine

By Wes Marshall, October 27, 2018, 7:16am, On the Range

We all have our areas of expertise based on whatever we do for a living, and you can usually be sure that in a social situation, someone will ask about our career.

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If you're a cardiologist, you know someone will ask for medical advice anytime you attend a party. If you work in a restaurant kitchen, people always want to talk about new discoveries in the restaurant world. If you sell health insurance, people want to ask about which hospitals are best. If you sell cars, folks want to know what kind of deal you can get them.

For myself, people are always asking what the best wine is, no matter the color, price, locale, or any other intervening variables.

A place I regularly recommend that has consistently excellent, fairly priced wine is the mountainous Northeastern part of Italy, especially when it comes to white wines. This week’s subject is Terlan Pinot Grigio ($22) from Italy's Alto Adige. For the geographically challenged out there, this is the area of Italy that pushes up against Austria, hence the Germanic spelling of the winery.

This wine is way beyond the insipid, ultra low-cost versions you find at chain Italian restaurants and grocery stores. It has sufficient acidity to stand up to flounder or shrimp alongside a nice fruitiness and minerality that smells like pulling a rounded river rock from a mountain creek. If this appeals to you, it’s worth searching out or ordering their Gewürztraminer ($22). It is a touch harder to find, but carries the grape’s rose aromas on a bed of similar minerality. Either will give you a good idea of what makes Alto Adige such very special place for wine.