Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is the delicate one: red cherry, raspberry, rose petal, forest floor. Pale in the glass, light on tannin, long on perfume. It is the red that works with duck, mushrooms, char siew and even salmon — the red that never shouts over the food.

In France, Pinot Noir is spelled “Burgundy”

Almost every red Burgundy in existence is 100% Pinot Noir. The label simply refuses to say so: it gives you the village instead — Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, Pommard, Santenay, Givry. Those are not other grapes. They are Pinot Noir with an address.

And then there is the hiding place nobody expects: Champagne. Pinot Noir is the backbone of most Champagne blends, and a Champagne labelled Blanc de Noirs is Pinot Noir pressed pale. If you like Pinot, you already like Champagne — you just didn’t know why.

• Côte de Nuits: the perfumed, ageworthy end — Gevrey-Chambertin (Domaine Trapet, René Bouvier, Hubert Lignier), Chambolle-Musigny (Felettig), Morey-Saint-Denis (Hubert Lignier).
• Côte de Beaune: rounder, earthier — Pommard 1er Cru Clos des Épeneaux (Comte Armand), Corton Clos du Roi Grand Cru (Pousse d’Or), Savigny 1er Cru Marconnets and Santenay Vieilles Vignes (Vincent Girardin).
• Côte Chalonnaise — the door in: real Burgundy at a price that does not require a decision — Givry “Cellier aux Moines” from Domaine Joblot, and Girardin’s Cuvée Saint-Vincent Rouge.
• Champagne: Bollinger, Roederer, Pol Roger, Taittinger — and the growers, Eric Rodez in Ambonnay Grand Cru and Clandestin in the Aube.

The bait and the better bottle

Type “Pinot Noir” into any search box and you will be shown a New World bottle with the grape on the label. Fine wines, many of them. But the village names above are the same grape in the place it came from, farmed by people whose families have been reading that hillside for generations. A village Gevrey-Chambertin, or a Givry from Joblot, will teach you more about Pinot Noir than any bottle that has to tell you what it is.

Free delivery on 6 bottles or more, anywhere in Singapore. See also Red Burgundy and Champagne.