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The house grapes · red

Pinot Noir: the light red (and a bit of a diva)

Pinot Noir is the pale red with light body, little tannin and a smell of strawberry, cherry and raspberry. It's the red for people who find reds too heavy. And, as a bonus, it's one of the grapes in Champagne and in Brazilian sparkling wine.

130 house labels have Pinot Noir58 are Pinot Noir onlyfrom Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Portugal

Where it comes from

It's from Burgundy, in France, and it's truly old: the oldest written record, according to Burgundy's wine board, dates from 1375. The name comes from its small, tight bunch, which looks like a pine cone.

It's also a grape with a big family: Chardonnay, Gamay and Aligoté all descend from it.

And it has a reputation as a diva. It's hard to grow, catches diseases easily and needs a cool climate to show everything it's got.

What it's like in the glass

The skin is thin and the juice comes out practically colorless: a red wine's color comes from the skin. The result: a light ruby wine that lets you see the bottom of the glass, with low tannin that barely grips your mouth, and fresh acidity.

On the nose, red fruit: strawberry, cherry, raspberry. Sometimes beet and wet earth show up. After a few years in the bottle, a smell of mushrooms and dry leaves appears.

House tip: serve it a little cooler than the air on a Brazilian summer day. A few minutes in the fridge help.

A vine leaf, a bunch of red grapes and a glass of Pinot Noir wine.
fig. 1From bunch to glass: thin skin, pale wine; you can see the bottom of the glass.

What it pairs with

It's the red that gets along with fish: grilled salmon, seared tuna, oven-baked bacalhau (salt cod). It goes very well with mushrooms in any form, like risotto, mushroom stroganoff or funghi pizza.

Roast chicken, duck, pork loin and Japanese food also make a good match. At a barbecue, it shines with chicken, sausage and the leaner meats. And if you like it with a fatty picanha steak, go ahead: food pairing is a suggestion, not a law.

Where it shines today

In Burgundy, it's the grape of the reds, traditionally on its own. In Champagne, it's the most planted: 38% of the vineyards, dominant in the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Bar.

In Brazil, it's a key piece of Serra Gaúcha sparkling wine. In the Altos de Pinto Bandeira Denomination of Origin (DO), recognized in 2022, only three grapes go into the sparkling wine: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling Itálico, the last one at 25% at most. And it's made only by the traditional method, with the second fermentation in the bottle.

In Chile, the cold valleys near the sea, like Casablanca and San Antonio, home to Leyda, and the Bío Bío, farther south, became Pinot's address.

In Argentina, Patagonia, with Neuquén and Río Negro, is home to the grapes that like the cold, and Pinot Noir goes into most of the sparkling wines made there.

In Portugal, it's rare: less than 1% of the vineyard in Bairrada and just over 2% in Távora-Varosa, according to the IVV, the official wine institute.

Its other names

VIVC, the international catalog of grape varieties, records 447 synonyms. The ones you might find on a label: Spätburgunder and Blauburgunder (in German), Pinot Nero (in Italian) and Pinot Negro (in Spanish). There's also Morillon Noir.

Red outside, white inside

How does a red grape become white sparkling wine? The secret is the colorless juice. In the press, the juice touches the skins as little as possible, and the wine comes out pale.

When the label says Blanc de Noirs, roughly “white from reds”, the sparkling wine was made only from red grapes, like Pinot Noir. It usually has more body than the ones made with white grapes.

To start with: Pinot Noir by price range

The price range the house saw at big stores in Brazil, in the month shown. The price changes; the range tends to stay.

Throwing a party? How many bottles to buy →

Top rated with Pinot Noir

Average rating from the people who drank it (X-Wines), from 1 to 5. Tap to see the wine's page.

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If red wine has always seemed heavy to you, start here. A slightly chilled Pinot Noir, salmon on the table, and that's it: you may find out you do like red after all.

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