2 Lads Old Mission Peninsula (Michigan) Pinot Grigio, 2016

This is another bottle with a huge $5 sticker I found at my local Crosstown (Kalamazoo) market. A look at the vintage (2016) gave me the reason for the deep discount. Distributors don't like to hold on to white wines more than six years after the vintage date. 

We taste 2 Lads wines (including the Pinot Grigio) at least once every summer, and these Old Mission wines clearly have the acidity for at least moderate aging. Since the bottle has a screwtop rather than a cork, it also offers some insights about this type of closure. An old, sometimes disputed, theory, is that a cork lets a small amount of air into the bottle, creating a perfect condition for aging. Having tasted this wine when it was first bottled and now at nine years of age, my conclusion is that the closure makes little difference. This wine is showing the same amount of oxidation and aging that I would expect with a cork closure.

Medium deep yellow, showing moderate maturity. Smells and flavors have mellowed as well: ripe apples, pears, citrus, white flowers. Mild on the attack and mellow on the finish. Has the acidity and life that I like in Old Mission Pinot Grigio and Riesling.