Pinot Noir recipe — The wine world's moody genius — silky when happy, heartbreaking when misunderstood. Originally from France.
I'm that friend who's absolutely brilliant but incredibly high-maintenance. I'll reward your patience with ethereal beauty, but cross me with the wrong soil or weather and I'll throw a tantrum that lasts all season. I speak fluent terroir and have strong opinions about everything.
Pinot Noir is one of the oldest grape varieties, with genetic analysis showing it's a parent grape to over 150 other wine varieties including Chardonnay. The grape is so genetically unstable that it mutates frequently, creating dozens of clones with slightly different characteristics.
Pinot Noir has been grown in Burgundy since at least the 4th century, possibly brought by the Romans. The Cistercian monks of the Middle Ages perfected its cultivation, meticulously mapping which hillsides produced the most transcendent wines. They discovered that this finicky grape reveals the subtlest differences in soil and climate like no other.
Category: wine | Difficulty: hard | Base spirit: None | ABV: 11.5-15.0%
Origin: France