I was recently invited over to a friend’s home for dinner and I, of course, brought a bottle of wine to share. Since he was preparing a classic French dish featuring halibut as the main course, I thought I would offer up one of my favorite wines from Alsace to pair with it, pinot blanc. That’s when the mix-up began.

“Interesting,” he said, displaying just the slightest hint of confusion while surveying the bottle. “I thought these wines went better with Italian fare,” he stated. The look of confusion then spread across my brow until it dawned on me that he was referring to pinot grigio, not pinot blanc. Once I cleared up the misunderstanding, he asked, “Aren’t they the same thing?”