Grape Variety Guide: Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is one of the oldest cultivated wine grapes in the world, grown in Burgundy for close to two thousand years and genetically very close to wild vines. It is a parent or ancestor of a great many other varieties, including Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier.

It is also famously unstable. Pinot Noir mutates readily, which is why hundreds of clones exist and why variants such as Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir Précoce arose as natural mutations rather than deliberate crossings.

Pinot Noir characteristics

Light to medium-bodied with low tannin and bright acidity. Red fruit dominates: cherry, raspberry, redcurrant and strawberry, often with a floral note and an earthy, undergrowth character that develops with age. In cool years and cool climates it leans tart and red-fruited rather than ripe and dark. It is a grape that allows site and season to show through clearly in the flavour profile.

Why does Pinot Noir suit England?

Pinot Noir is a cool-climate grape. Its two spiritual homes, Burgundy and Champagne, are both northerly and both marginal, so England sits within the range it was built for. It ripens relatively early and achieves flavour at modest sugar levels.

The difficulty is its skin. Pinot Noir has thin skins and tight bunches, which makes it vulnerable to rot in a wet autumn, and it demands careful canopy work in English summers. Making a still red from it is harder still, since red wine needs high ripeness levels. Most English Pinot Noir goes into sparkling or rosé for exactly that reason but in recent years the weather has allowed ripeness levels suitable for producing fantastic red wines.

One quirk worth knowing: despite its dark skin, Pinot Noir has colourless juice. Pressed gently and taken off the skins quickly, it makes white or pale pink wine. That is the mechanism behind every Blanc de Noirs and most rosé.

Our approach to growing Pinot Noir at Dillions 

Our Pinot Noir is planted across 20 rows at Dillions with a total of 3044 vines. We have three different clones, 459, 667 and 386.

Clone 459 is best suited to still wine. It’s a Dijon selection that sits at the “Burgundy-style” end of the range, typically giving concentrated fruit, good colour and structure. It is generally considered a red wine clone and is a good fit for a still Pinot Noir, and also works for rosé. Many vineyards do also use this clone in their sparkling wines.

Clone 667 is best suited to still wine. Also a famous clone from Burgundy. It features small-to-medium clusters and berries, producing dark fruit profiles (tasting notes that include black cherry, blackberry, plum) alongside rich skin pigments and firm, velvety tannins. Clone 667’s high phenolic content, deeper color, and structured tannins make it a prime candidate for high-end still Pinot Noir, where color extraction and long-term aging capacity are desirable.

Clone 386 is best suited to sparkling wine as well. It’s an early-ripening, lower-vigour Dijon-derived clone that retains acidity well at modest sugar levels, which is what you want for a base wine. It’s often paired with 667 and sometimes the more floral 115 or 777 in a sparkling blend. Certified by ENTAV-INRA in France with an origin in Marne (Champagne). It tends to produce higher yields with larger, fleshier berries, lower sugar accumulation, and high natural acidity.

We use our three Pinot Noir clones in our Red, Rose and sparkling wines. Each season produces fruit with difference ripeness and acidity levels allowing us to choose which fruit would be most suited to the wines we are choosing to make in that year.

Pinot Noir Frequently asked questions

What is Pinot Noir?

Pinot Noir is a black grape variety and one of the oldest in cultivation, grown in Burgundy for close to two thousand years. It produces light to medium-bodied red wines with bright acidity, fine tannin and red fruit character, and is also one of the three principal grapes of Champagne.
What does Pinot Noir taste like?

Pinot Noir is light to medium-bodied with low tannin and bright acidity, giving cherry, raspberry, redcurrant and strawberry fruit, often with a floral note. With age it develops an earthy, undergrowth character. In cool climates it leans tart and red-fruited rather than ripe and dark.
Why is Pinot Noir considered difficult to grow?

Pinot Noir has thin skins and tight bunches, which makes it vulnerable to rot in wet autumns, and it mutates readily, producing hundreds of clones with different behaviours. It is also unusually transparent, meaning site and season show through clearly in the finished wine, so there is little to hide behind.
Why is Pinot Noir used in sparkling wine?

Pinot Noir ripens early and retains high acidity in cool climates, which is exactly what traditional method sparkling wine needs. It also has colourless juice beneath its dark skin, so it can be pressed gently to make white sparkling wine. That is what Blanc de Noirs means: white from black grapes.
Can Pinot Noir make white and rosé wine?

Yes. Despite its dark skin, Pinot Noir has colourless juice. Pressed gently and taken off the skins quickly it gives white or pale pink wine; left in contact with the skins it gives colour and tannin. That single fact is why most rosé and a great deal of white sparkling wine is made from black grapes.
Is Pinot Noir grown in England?

Yes, and it is one of the most widely planted varieties in the country, grown principally for sparkling wine and rosé. English still red from Pinot Noir is harder to achieve, because red wine needs riper fruit than a cool climate reliably delivers, though warmer seasons have made it increasingly possible.