Popular Wines Made From Pinot Noir Varietal Grapes:

• Pinot Negro
• Red Burgundy
• Spätburgunder
• Blauburgunder
• Volnay
• Pommard

A good Pinot Noir is one of the safest red wines, along with Merlot, to serve to a big group of people.

These wines have flavours of ripe red berries, sweet black cherries, mushrooms and what sommeliers call forest floor, that smell you get from freshly fallen damp leaves.

Pinot Noir was born in the Burgundy region of France, and it’s in Burgundy where the best Pinot Noir is still produced. Like many other regions of France, Pinot Noir producers do not refer to their Pinot Noir wine as Pinot Noir, but instead call it red Burgundy, after the region where it’s made.

Characteristics

Taste: Delicate savoury aromas and red fruit flavours of cherry, strawberry, raspberry and plum are accompanied by additional complex flavours which can emerge as the wines age and mature. These additional flavours include fig, truffle, wood smoke and violets as well as forest floor and animal notes of mushroom and leather. Age can add great complexity to the best wines.
Tannin: Low to medium
Acidity: High
Age: Most are best when young, while top quality wines develop great complexity with age.
Potential Alcohol By Volume: 12.5%
Volume: 10 litres
Weeks to Make: 4 Weeks
Makes: 23 litres