Wine of the week: Puklavec Family Wines, Seven Numbers Pinot Grigio

We at team db want to celebrate the very best bottles from our Global Masters. Every Wednesday, we’ll select a wine that picked up either a Gold or Master from our competition series, and tell you why the judges loved it.

Photo: Puklavec Family Wines

We’re about to close the entries for our Pinot Gris Masters, so if you work with this grape, however and wherever, please enter the competition to ensure a professional assessment of your wine, coupled with the potential for truly global recognition.

As for last year’s tasting – which was our inaugural Global Master competition for Pinot Gris/Grigio – the judges were highly impressed by the quality of wines, especially those hailing from Italy, above all Trentino. Indeed, as many as one fifth of the medallists were from the Tre Venezia of the Veneto, Friuli and Trentino Alto Adige, newly united under one DOC called Pinot Grigio delle Venezie.

But northeastern Italy wasn’t the only source of great Pinot Grigio. An immensely exciting find, and our top-scoring wine of the competition, hailed from just over the border in Slovenia, where Puklavec makes a Pinot Grigio called Seven Numbers – a title given to its top single-vineyard wines.

Made in Slavonian oak, but using modern winemaking approaches, this is a clean, apple and pear-scented wine, with a touch of yellow fruit, and a lovely rounded texture, balanced by a bright and slightly stony finish.

The wine: Puklavec Family Wines, Seven Numbers Pinot Grigio, 2016

The source: Prlekija, Slovenia

The grape(s): Pinot Grigio

The style: Lightly-oaked, dry, medium-weight white wine

The price: £15-£20

The medal: Master – The Global Pinot Gris Masters, 2018

The deadline to enter the Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris Masters 2019 is on 21 June. For more information, click here.