Pinot noir

Red wine grapeFrance, Italy

The style profiled here is a dry, light-bodied red Pinot noir wine: light, silky, red cherry and earth. Typical alcohol is 12.5 to 14%. Serve it at 13 to 16 °C.

Also called Blauburgunder, Spätburgunder, Rulandské modré, Pinot nero, other synonyms.

The grape

Pinot noir is old, genetically unstable and famously difficult, and it is the grape behind red Burgundy. It has been growing in eastern France for at least a thousand years, and because it mutates readily it exists as hundreds of clones with real differences between them. Pinot gris, pinot blanc and pinot meunier are all colour and hair mutations of the same vine, not separate varieties in the ordinary sense.

The berries are small and thin-skinned, packed in a tight bunch shaped like a pine cone, which is where the name comes from. Thin skins mean little tannin and little colour, so pinot noir is pale and soft in a way that misleads people into expecting a simple wine. The tight bunch means rot spreads quickly in a wet autumn. Its aromatics, red cherry, raspberry, and with age mushroom, forest floor and game, come with high acidity and almost no structural padding, so there is nothing for a fault to hide behind.

It needs a cool climate with a long slow ripening season and it punishes both under and over ripeness. The Côte d'Or is the reference. Oregon's Willamette Valley, Central Otago and Martinborough in New Zealand, Sonoma Coast and the Santa Rita Hills, Germany's Baden and Ahr, and Tasmania all make serious pinot. It is also one of the three Champagne grapes, where it gives the wine body and red-fruit weight.

BuyingCheap pinot noir is usually thin or sweetened to compensate. If the budget is tight, buy a good cru Beaujolais or a Loire cabernet franc instead, and save pinot for when you can spend more.

Style profile

Our rating of a representative wine
Sweetness
Bone dry
Body
Light
Tannin
Low
Acidity
High

Sweetness and structure vary with the producer, region and winemaking. These ratings describe the style above; check the label for the bottle in front of you.

Food pairings

Where it grows

Notable regions
France Burgundy | Champagne | United States Santa Barbara Region | Santa Cruz Mountains | Russian River Valley | Willamette Valley | New Zealand Central Otago | Marlborough | Martinborough | Australia Tasmania | Mornington Peninsula | Yarra Valley | Romania | Germany | Chile | Canada | England | South Africa
Notable wines
Gevrey-Chambertin, Nuits-Saint-Georges
Soil
Chalky clay
Flavour
Light tannins
Cool climate
Cabbage, wet leaves
Medium climate
Strawberry, raspberry, cherry, mushroom, meaty

Explore its wine regions

Planting snapshot

2015 observations, OIV 2017 study

OIV recorded about 112,000 hectares worldwide under the reported name Pinot Noir in its 2015 variety snapshot.

China
about 1,000 ha (2015)
France
about 32,000 ha (2015)
United States
about 25,000 ha (2015)
Australia
about 5,000 ha (2015)
Germany
about 12,000 ha (2015)

Historical, rounded figures, including all uses of the grape. OIV’s variety study covers 75% of world vineyard area. A country absent from this table may still grow this grape.

Countries that build on it

Similar grapes

Sources