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Pinot Noir's Incestuous Family Tree
By Mark Gapinski, CSW

Here is an in-depth look at Pinot Noir and its very incestuous family from Wine Guy Mark Gapinski...

Pinot Noir is one of the world’s oldest grapes. References as far back as the first century describe Pinot Noir in what is now the Burgundy region of France. It became the sacramental wine of choice in the early Church. Over the past two millennia, Pinot Noir has produced millions of barrels of extraordinary wine and delighted even the most particular wine consumer.

The development of rapid and cost-effective DNA typing technology in the 1980s not only helped solve many crimes and establish many paternity relationships it also allowed scientists to explore the genealogy of grape varietals. Some of the early findings of Professor Carole Meredith and her colleagues at UC-Davis were quite eye-popping. In the early 2000s, they discovered that Pinot Noir and Gouais Blanc had gotten together and produced Chardonnay. Yes, Gouais Blanc, an unloved varietal that was eventually eradicated from the Burgundy region, is a parent of Chardonnay! And it wasn’t just a one-night stand! These two also produced Gamay, the major grape of the Beaujolais, Melon de Bourgogne, the grape of Muscadet, and Aligote, the minor white grape of Burgundy, not to mention the obscure Romarantin varietal of the Loire Valley. That makes all these varietals siblings of Chardonnay.

If Pinot Noir’s liaison with Gouais Blanc wasn’t shocking enough, there are a number of other branches of the family tree that resulted from Pinot Noir going solo via mutation. Pinot Blanc is a Pinot Noir mutation that cannot express red skin color and ends up a pale yellow when ripe. Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio in Italian) is a special kind of Pinot Noir mutant called a chimera; it is both Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc at the same time.

When skin color expression is “normal” for Pinot Gris, it is a dark, dusky pink color when ripe. However, there are some Pinot Gris vines that have red and white grapes growing on the same vine, even within the same grape cluster. Who knew? Two other Pinot Noir mutants are the dark-skinned Pinot Meunier, which is important in Champagne production, and Pinot Teinturier, one of the 12 varietals of grapes that have red flesh in addition to red skin. All other grapes have white flesh. These mutants cannot be distinguished from Pinot Noir using the marker-based DNA testing technology currently in place to identify grape varieties. In this way, these mutants do not represent new varieties but rather are a dramatic twist on good old Pinot Noir.

n addition to direct spawn and a number of notable mutants, Pinot Noir has spontaneously produced many more versions with less dramatic variations. In a vineyard of Pinot Noir, a grower may recognize that certain vines have developed notable properties. Some may ripen earlier, while others may have desirable aromatic or flavor qualities. In such cases, the viticulturist may choose to propagate the desirable vines. This is generally accomplished by grafting a cutting from the desired plant onto the rootstock of another plant. This will produce an identical copy, or clone, of the original vine. Over decades, this process has been repeated many times, resulting in hundreds of clones of Pinot Noir. Several universities have undertaken cataloging projects to provide an understanding of the range of clones. The Pommard clones, derived from cuttings in the Pommard region of Burgundy, were identified at the University of California-Davis as part of a program to supply virus-free Pinot Noir vines suitable for planting in the American West.

The Pommard clones can be recognized by their University of California-Davis numbers, such as UCD4, UCD91, and UCD01A. This program also produced the Wädenswil clone from Burgundian (via Switzerland) Pinot Noir cuttings that were among the first planted in the Willamette Valley. Clones identified by winemakers are also included in this catalog, including the Calera, Coury, and Merry Edwards clones. In the 1970s, a similar program seeking virus-free Pinot Noir clones was also undertaken in Dijon, France, producing the family of Dijon clones. These clones can be recognized by their three-letter names, such as 114, 115, 667, and 777. These clones have also been planted widely in both Oregon and California.

When planting a new vineyard, a wine grower can choose to plant entirely one clone (called clonal selection) or a mixture of different clones (called a massal selection). There are pluses and minuses to each approach. Some producers find a single clone works beautifully in a particular vineyard, whereas in other settings, a mixture of clones might produce grapes that deliver a more complete wine. Another approach is to plant different clones in certain areas of the vineyard. These clonal blocks can be harvested and vinified individually, and the resulting wines are blended in a way to produce the aroma and flavor profile the winemaker desires.

With its prodigious family tree, the Pinot Noir grape is ultimately responsible for the world’s Muscadet, Champagne, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay (the world’s most widely planted white varietal) and Gamay production. The continually evolving clones of Pinot Noir have enabled it to produce some of the world’s most stunning wines. Now that’s a truly productive family!

September 27, 2023