Pinot blanc

Pinot blanc is a colour mutation of pinot gris, which is itself a mutation of pinot noir. All three are genetically the same variety and cannot be told apart by DNA analysis. Only the skin colour differs, and a single vine can carry canes of more than one colour. Growers in Alsace and Burgundy have selected the pale form for centuries.

It makes a quiet wine. Moderate acidity, moderate alcohol, apple and almond, no strong aroma and no strong structure, which has made it the useful neutral white of several countries at once. Alsace uses it as the base of Crémant d'Alsace. Germany calls it weißburgunder and takes it more seriously than France does, ripening it in Baden and the Pfalz and sometimes ageing it in barrel to real weight.

Austria and northern Italy both grow a good deal, and in Italy it is pinot bianco. Confusion follows it around: much of what Alsace bottles as pinot blanc is partly or wholly auxerrois, a different grape, and the label does not have to say so. In California the variety sold as pinot blanc for decades turned out to be melon de Bourgogne.