Best Pinot Grigio wines: 25 under £20

This wine is just bursting with fresh, ripe pear flavours both on the nose and palate. It’s soft and smooth, rich and round but not too heavy, with delicate acidity and notes of bruised apple and an off-dry honeyed sweetness. This is a wine for food – it’s not for idly sipping but for savouring and tasting the nuances with something delicious to eat, such game. A wine that delivers more than its price suggests.

From the hills of Friuli, this delicious, complex Pinot Grigio is the perfect match for seared scallops. White floral scents and notes of melon, banana and citrus are followed in the mouth by mashed banana, peach and citrus, with a seam of fresh acidity.

Made in London's first urban winery with grapes grown in West Sussex, this funky PetNat has vigorous bubbles and crisp acid. Bottled with its lees, so if you keep it for three to five years it will evolve in the bottle, developing more bready, yeasty notes. Apple and yeasty farmyard aromas. The palate is crisp and fresh, with high natural acidity, notes of citrus and green apple. Only 200 bottles made.

Produced in the mountainous northern Italy, it has a nose of white blossom, ripe white peach and lemon fruits. Stone fruit and crisp green apple acidity on the palate, spiced by a touch of white pepper. Good concentration of flavours, with melon and peachy undertone lingers on to the finish.

Many Decanter readers would run a mile from a Tesco Pinot Grigio, but this example has real character – as do many examples from Friuli in northern Italy. Unoaked, and made with grapes sourced from a single vineyard, this has a golden hue in the glass. Take a sip and it's all about white flowers, apples and firm stone fruit. Would stand up well to spicy dishes.

A world away from its alter ego Pinot Grigio, this Alsatian Pinot Gris is bursting with juicy, ripe pear fruit character. There's also some acacia and almost a faint salinity to it. Lidl recommends it as a match for the Christmas turkey, but I'm not convinced – I'd suggest some mild, creamy cheese instead.

Classic Oregon Pinot Gris, this engaging medium-bodied, bone-dry wine leans heavily into peaches and pears, with a lovely, lingering minerality and vibrant acidity. Round and textured, the finish is tangy, fresh and refined.

Pink-hued with a nose of ripe peaches and yellow apple fruits, plus a touch of flint and boiled vegetable. Grapefruit and green apple on the palate, backed by dried apricot and cinnamon spices. The marmalade and melon-like sweetness lingers on. This Pinot Grigio has gone through up to 48 hours of maceration during fermentation, in addition to six months on the lees in stainless steel tanks.

A lithe and lively single-vineyard Pinot Grigio leaning aromatically into the floral notes of chamomile bolstered by honeydew melon and ripe Bartlett pear. Crisp and tangy, this medium-bodied wine offers lovely minerality with balance and elegance through the spicy finish.

From two plots in the Hérault (west of Montpellier and east of Carcassonne) on stony, chalk-clay soils. Lightly floral on the nose, the palate is fleshy with crisp acidity and a touch of green apple and ripe melon fruit. There’s some typical Pinot Gris fatness with a touch of smokiness on the palate. Perfect over the next 12-18 months.

A textured and bright Pinot Gris from Waipara which is steely, long and lush with papaya, tinned pineapple and tropical fruit, and a keen lick of acidity. Four months on the lees adds mouth-weight and swagger.

First planted in New Zealand in the early 1990s, Pinot Gris has enjoyed great success here and is now the country's third most popular white variety. The vast majority is planted in Marlborough and Hawke's Bay, but Central Otago does have some Pinot Gris vineyards, including those used by Roaring Meg for its fragrant and spicy example. Off-dry in style, there's an attractive weight of pear, melon and peach fruit, with some white flowers. It's aromatic and quite rich with a good weight on the palate, but still fresh as a daisy. A classic match for spicy Thai dishes.

This lees-aged Pinot Grigio has a delicate nose of straw, nectarine and white flowers. It combines tangy lime and grapefruit flavours with rich lanolin and beeswax. Balanced and precise, the lingering, gum-tingling acidity carries the finish.

A great value Pinot Grigio, made with a blend of grapes from warmer Gisborne and the cooler South Island. Pear aromas with a pretty floral edge are followed by a fresh palate, with a creaminess to the texture thanks to time on lees. Ripe orchard fruit (Gisborne) is balanced by fresh green herbal notes (South Island) that add punch to the finish.

This north-Italian Pinot grigio features typical melon and peardrop aromas, with juicy lemon and apple flavours with a hint of herbs. There's also a touch of juicy peach on the finish. A pinot Grigio that balances flavour and freshness.

An enticing nose of peach and candied fruit. Aged in stainless steel for six months with regular lees stirring post-fermentation, which gives an ample, creamy and frothy mouthfeel. The fruit has a tropical character on the palate and defines the pretty finish.

The Germans call it Grauburgunder, but this white grape is more commonly known as Pinot Gris, or Pinot Grigio. This is more Gris in style than Grigio, and has the grape's telltale faint pinkish tinge in the glass, with a good weight of white fruit in aroma and flavour. There's an attractive Old World coolness to it, and a good structure. Try it with roast chicken.