Talk:Pinot noir

Latest comment: 3 months ago by OrewaTel in topic Pinot Nero

Please add note about Pinot Noir in Crimea, Ukraine edit

I recently discovered for myself a really delightful aroma of Crimean Pinot by Inkerman brand.

Reference to Columella's De Re Rustica edit

I am sorry to say that I cannot find any mention of a grape varietal in the said work (read in English translation) that corresponds to pinot noir. Please correct me if I have unwittingly passed over something. NilsGLindgren (talk) 15:34, 17 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Peak at Burgundy? edit

To say that "[pinot nior]reaches its peak in Burgundy wine" is only an opinion, and not a statement of fact, and is not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Perhaps this can be reworded: "Historically, great Pinot Noir has been associated with Burgundy, although other regions also produce Pinot Noir wines." or deleted all together.

Jargon edit

This article is awash in jargon without linking:

Pinot Noir, known as Pinot Nero in Italian, is a red wine grape variety, considered to make some of the greatest wines. It is almost universally agreed to reach its peak in the wines of Burgundy, but is also used in the production of Champagne and is planted in most of the world's wine growing regions for use in both still and sparkling wines. Pinot Noir grown for dry table wines is generally low-yielding and often difficult to grow well. Pinot Noir grown for use in sparkling wines (e.g., Champagne) is generally higher yielding.

What does yielding mean? The first sentence doesn't read well and doesn't make it clear that pinot noir is a species of grape.

Happy to gloss yielding. Yield means to produce, so a plant that is high yielding produces more fruit than a plant that is low yielding. Similarly, a high-yielding bank account or share would give more dividends/interest than a low-yielding one.Limegreen 20:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
Agreed, "yield" is not jargon, and it certainly doesn't have any better-known or more appropriate synonyms. There *is* a lot of jargon in this article though, specifically abstract, unquantifiable terms like: depth, complexity, earthy, intense, etc. While such vocabulary may be common in wine (and stereo) aficionado publications and conversation, it seems to be inappropriate for a Wikipedia article. Since there are no agreed-upon definitions for these words as they relate to wine, they should either be replaced with concrete descriptions or removed entirely.

Marlborough, NZ and Pinot Noir edit

Does anyone have a contribution/edit on the production of Pinot Noir in Marlborough?JonathanG

I probably should. There's far more there than anywhere else (although of course much of that is destined for Lindauer). On the other hand, I don't think that Marlborough is really excelling to the extent that even Nelson is. You're welcome to toss something in, or I'll have a reflect on it...
--Limegreen 22:05, 22 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

I just swapped Martinborough for Marlborough. Marlborough may produce more, but the more of the good stuff comes from Martinborough, Central Otago, and perhaps Waipara. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jameskjx (talkcontribs) 06:59, 27 January 2013 (UTC)Reply


I read bias in this statement above. So you are adding personal opinion to the Wiki page, without declaring interest.

Over all, I see the article (with regard to NZ wine), as being well structured and unbiased.

I recently accompanied a group of US, French, Australian and German winemakers and MWs the concensus was as follows (using the American rating scale of 100):-

Wairarapa ... of 28 Pinot noir tasted ... 6 rated > 91/100 (21%); 8 rated 87 to 90/100 (26%) Nelson ... of 14 tasted ... 3 rated > 91/100 (22%); 3 rated 87 to 90/100 (22%). Marlborough ... of 38 tasted ... 8 rated > 91/100 (22%); 19 rated 87 to 90/100 (50%). Canterbury ... of 18 wines tasted ... 4 rated >91/100 (22%); 5 rated 87 to 90/100 (27%). Central Otago ... of 35 wines tasted ... 6 rated >91/100 (16%); 12 rated 87 to 90/100 (35%) A single Hawke Bay Pinot ... rated 90/100.

The group was high-powered but with a definite "European" bias (French makers, MWs and UK importers).

What it illustrates is that fine wines are made in all regions to about the same degree - with sound commercial wines being made as well. I make no personal comments on the above, other than that observation.

Keep in mind that Marlborough is a commercial vineyard/winemaking area compared to the much smaller area plantings in Canterbury, Central Otago, Nelson and the Wairarapa ... Martinborough being a sub-region of the latter. The area planted to Pinot noir alone in Marlborough - exceeds the plantings of ALL varieties in all four regions mentioned - combined. With reference to Pinot noir - it is inevitable that these much larger wine companies will produce wines at the commercial-market end; which is similar to Bourgogne indeed. There are however a significant number of very fine Pinots made - as Michael Cooper's annual tastings reveal. They differ from those of Central Otago - often being more complex, refined and velvety and without the "earthiness" that often characterises those wines of Martinborough - which is found to be attractive by many consumers. Central Otago wines are immensely attractive in their youth with Canterbury wines showing a crossing between the northern makers and those to the south. The commercial wines are likewise built (deliberate use), for rapid sale and rapid drinking (< 5 years), as one would expect - but this does not reduce their validity. 210.246.37.87 (talk) 03:28, 29 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Unites States and Pinot Noir edit

There is no section for the US in Pinot Noir, though there have been many celebrated Pinot Noirs coming out of California and Oregon. I don't have enough knowledge to add the section myself, but I think it could be a good addition. 67.176.41.21 22:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC) AlexReply

Having just been drinking a 14.5% Edna Valley Pinot Noir, the claim for modest alcohol (12%) seems unjustified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.48.243.70 (talk) 19:32, 8 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Australia edit

As a lover of Australian Pinots I have added a section about Australia. I'll try to add more later. Please join me. --Bduke 08:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Sparkling White Pinot Nero? edit

Hi. This article seems to refer to red wine (although it does mention champagne too). However, on a recent holiday in northern Italy I enjoyed several Pinot Neros which were slightly sparkling white wines, from Oltrepò Pavese. Could anyone shed any light on this? Does Pinot Noir/Nero usually make a red wine (I couldn't actually see explicitly in the article)? Is there an alternative method of making white wine from the same grape? etc. Thanks. 86.1.161.152 15:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

OK, so reading the Wine article I've noticed that colour of the wine isn't dependent on the colour of the grape. Would this article benefit from it being stated that both red and white wines are made from the grape? Or is that the case for most grape varieties? Please excuse my ignorance on this matter! 86.1.161.152 15:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

pinot noir just like any other red grape can, and does, produce both red, rose and white wine (sperkling and still). This is due to the fact that the pigments that define the colour of a wine are in the skin of the grape and not in the pulp thus a wine will be red or white depending on the amount of time that the juice from the grape is in contact with the skin after pressing, if there is little or no contact the wine will be white allthough it was made with a red grape. A perfect example of this is that of Champagne, a winemaker has the choice of 3 grapes here, pinot noir, pinot meunier or chardonnay the first 2 being red. They even make champagne just with the 2 reds this is called blanc d noir.

Pinot Noir Photo Request edit

Some nice photos to have would be a photo of a Burgundy (bottle & glass), Blanc de Noir Champagne and a good Oregon Pinot-maybe a food shot with Salmon. Agne 21:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

I could tee up a couple of bottles of Burgundy, NZ Pinot, and possibly one from the Macon villages...--Limegreen 23:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

References and Source cited edit

As part of helping to work Pinot Noir up to FA status, I've added source tags to the article for things that an inline citation would be nice to have. Mostly it's for weasel words sentence "Some feel", "some say" etc. We also need to convert some of the quotes into in-line citation for WP:V. Agne 03:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Questionable content edit

I moved the following bits here because they lack citation and may also represent an individual POV or rely upon weasel words. If these can be attributed properly, I'd like to see them moved back into the article with the appropriate citation. dpotter 18:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

France edit

The most prestigious pure Pinot Noir Champagne is Bollinger's Vieilles Vignes Françaises

Germany edit

Robert M. Parker, Jr. says in one of his books that German pinot noir tastes thin, like badly made Burgundy wine. While some examples may not be well made, many are, and are highly sought after.

Oregon edit

Today, Oregon is regarded as one of the world's best pinot noir producing regions.

Pronunciation edit

In my opinion, a pronunciation guide for Pinot Noir could be useful. I found "pee-no NWAHR" and some variants from the net, but I suppose it should be in IPA. But I don't know how. Anyone? --Ketorin 12:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Catalan Countries? edit

This is obviously inaccurate. I just reverted a change change which renamed the section SPAIN. I believe it should be Spain but the way in which it was done was not correct.

Does anyone have any feelings about this before I change it back to Spain? Gsherry 13:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

This looks like the Spain/Catalonia conflicts don't even spare the wine articles :p Look at these diffs from the article's history. December 11, 2006 & December 7th, 2006. I think the text prior to the Dec 7th edit is probably the best. Agne 14:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Synonyms edit

The new infobox points to a non-existent section on synonyms. Is such a list a good idea? Is anyone planing to add it? --Bduke 23:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

There are certainly some synonyms (e.g. Spätburgunder, Pinot nero), so it will get filled out eventually.--Limegreen 00:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Pronunciation edit

What about a pronunciation key for how to say Pinot Noir? 170.65.188.2 04:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thoughts on assessment edit

This one is a borderline B, so some extra opinions are needed. The most glaring absence is a viticulture & winemaking section (especially since Pinot is notorious in both categories). The wine region section appears comprehensive thanks to all those sub sections but there is really not much substance beyond France and a little about Oregon-with even those sections skipping over a lot of important details. California is hardly mention except for a list. That area could really use a reworking all around. The article could also use a food pairing section. AgneCheese/Wine 00:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, but what do the grapes taste like? edit

Honestly, though all this historical and regional information about wine is very informational and terrific for winos- the article is (if I am not mistaken) about a fruit. Don't you think information should be thrown in there somewhere about the fruit -before- it has been fermented? Or should we adjust the Peach article to be about the wonders of Schnapps, the Banana and Coffee articles to be about Liqueurs, the Coconut be all about Rum and so on? 98.18.34.174 (talk) 02:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

No, this is grape variety used for producing wine. --Bduke (talk) 03:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
The grapes taste good if you like lots of tannic, dry mouth feel with your sweets and don't mind seeds in your grapes. Go ahead and add something about the taste of the grapes if you find a solid reference to back up your writing. Binksternet (talk) 05:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
The articles about grape varieties within WP:WINE usually cover both the grape itself and general information on wines produced from it. Actually, the interest in Pinot Noir and other grape varieties, and the ambition to describe their differences in an encyclopedia, stems almost exclusively from their use in making wine. A few well-known noble Vitis vinifera varieties used for wine, can also be used as table grapes, e.g., Tempranillo, but that use tends to dwarf their use in wine production. However, in most cases grapes of noble varieties are never eaten fresh, since the grapes of varieties destined for wine are usually much smaller and have a significantly higher proportion of seeds than varieties specifically bred as table grapes. Often, commercially grown table grapes are of non-V. vinifera species or are hybrids. Tomas e (talk) 14:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Santa Maria Valley edit

One of the top Pinot noir areas in California was left out and should be added: the Santa Maria Valley. 71.246.217.23 (talk) 18:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

sofixit. And cite sources. -- dpotter (talk) 06:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging edit

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"Sideways" Effect edit

This was recently the topic of a paper presented at American Association of Wine Economists. Article appeared in Wines & Vines trade publication as well.

http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP25.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.225.207.28 (talk) 07:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

""The name is derived from the French words for "pine" and "black" alluding to the varietals' tightly clustered dark purple pine cone-shaped bunches of fruit""


"Pin" means pine in French. I really think this should by backed up, I think it may well not be true... 86.68.122.40 (talk) 20:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

Pinot is not from standard French, but from the old Bourgogne dialect. It apparently was borrowed into English in that form, whereas the spelling in standard French became pineau. See http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/pineau for more information. Mahousu (talk) 22:06, 19 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Pointless advertising blurbs edit

This article relies heavily on irritating advertisement-grade verbiage like the silly "sex in a bottle", the stupid "god/devil" statements, and the equally idiotic Robert Parker quotation at the end. In my opinion, none of these should be found in an encyclopedia, except perhaps well-quarantined in a "Pinot Noir and the Media" or similar article.


184.97.165.4 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC).Reply

Columella, again edit

Now I have read two different translations of Columella's De Re Rustica. None of them contains description of a grape reminiscent of Pinot Noir. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NilsGLindgren (talkcontribs) 21:15, 8 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Why does this section read like an advert for the winegrowers?

This section fails to meet the usual strict criteria for encyclopaedic type entries...which can be seen in comparing this chapter to the others.----176.26.20.216 (talk)

Assessment comment edit

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Pinot noir/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

With all of your wine pages you should put a section for how that wine tends to taste. With the description in it's own section. I found only one that had said section, and for those of us who aren't that familiar with wine it helps tremendously!

Last edited at 16:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 03:03, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion edit

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:54, 9 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 31 January 2023 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover)Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 05:36, 7 February 2023 (UTC)Reply


Pinot noirPinot Noir – Correct capitalization – see reliable sources. The prose of the article also uses capitals. Mast303 (talk) 01:09, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose and edit the article to use lowercase throughout. The prose of the article used caps consistently at the time you submitted this request only because you edited it to include many more capitals. In the article's bibliography, the book North American Pinot Noir uses "noir" (except in the title), and for what it's worth this would not be capitalized in French, either. Capitalization by individual wineries is probably a marketing tool. Dekimasuよ! 04:06, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
    @Dekimasu: The French part is irrelevant, since we should look at English reliable sources, not French ones. Mast303 (talk) 23:32, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Support but only in a wider context - please see this discussion from 2018 on the Wine Project talk page about wine variety capitalisation. Almost nobody in any of the standard texts, books, references, journals, wine magazines, websites, or wine labels since the 1990s uses this "Pinot noir" form of capitalisation; it's usually written as "Pinot Noir". There is an esoteric view that colour mutations of plant cultivars are normally not capitalised, but that seems a very strange hill to die on compared to the general use, as illustrated by this Ngram. Unfortunately neither the Wine Portal nor the Wine WikiProject are very active, so not much discussion about this has happened. Perhaps you'd all like to weigh in on the wider issue with your thoughts?—Jon (talk) 04:38, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Except in the title of the article, which always begins with a capital letter, it is not "Pinot noir" that is being suggested here, but rather "pinot noir". I'm not sure Google Books is a very good indicator in this case, but at any rate the standard for using caps at WP:MOSCAPS is generally quite strict. Dekimasuよ! 05:03, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Request is to move this to "Pinot Noir", not "pinot noir"—Jon (talk) 05:22, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Right. My point was that the current article title does not necessitate the use of "Pinot noir" either. Dekimasuよ! 18:13, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • There was a move request here back in 2013 in favor of lowercase that covered this article by analogy. —  AjaxSmack  05:57, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose - Nothing like a majority of sources using upper-case. Primergrey (talk) 07:03, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
    • @Primergrey out of interest, I'd like to know which ones still use lower case. The Oxford Companion to Wine, The World Atlas of Wine, all the Australian & NZ viticulture & winemaking journals I've been reading, Journal of Wine Research, everything published by IVES and OIV, most of the trade and consumer oriented journals, magazines and reviewers (Decanter, Wine Enthusiast, Parker/Wine Advocate, Jancis Robinson, James Suckling, etc.), are now capitalised. if that's "nothing like the majority" then I'd love to know what I'm missing out on.—Jon (talk) 10:17, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
      • I planned to abstain from voting because, though I personally oppose capitalizing grape varieties—they're not proper names and using caps violates the spirit of WP:NOTGUIDE—capitalizing seemed quite widespread. However, a pretty cursory web search came up with "How to Capitalize Wines" and "Grape varieties: to capitalize or not to capitalize?" (as well as this short piece with extensive discussion), which all references to reliable sources. The gist is that specialist sources lean toward capitalizing everything, while general-audience sources capitalize only varieties or wines named with proper nouns (e.g. regions like Burgundy, Chianti). The generalist sources cited include the Globe and Mail, the AP Stylebook, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Therefore,...
  • Oppose per WP:AUDIENCE, i.e. Wikipedia should be written for a general audience, reflecting sources for those audiences. Wikipedia does something similar for Bird names and article titles: it ignores the International Ornithological Congress caps practice in favor of Wikipedia's own guidelines. In the case of wine varieties (which are actually cultivars), the governing ICNCP says to capitalize these names and place them between single quotes following the binomial, e.g. Vitis vinifera ‘Elbling’ (see WP:FLORATITLES for details). But outside of that specific phrasing, there's not strict adherence to those rules in sources—the single quotes are ignored nearly universally, so the rules are nearly always interpreted by sources. Additionally in the case of the pinot family, the noir, gris and blanc are not separate cultivars but are color descriptives, hence the practice of Pinot noir (with capital P and lowercase n) even in wine sources which is reflected in this discussion.  AjaxSmack  17:10, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
    I am curious about this, so after some digging, The Chicago Tribune, The Times (UK), The Guardian, and The Australian also use lower case ("sauvignon blanc", "cabernet sauvignon"), but many others (e.g. The Economist, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Zealand newspapers) use upper case ("Sauvignon Blanc"). So I don't think we can infer a consensus from mainstream newspapers, or make a decision based on a small sample of US newspapers, and the three blog posts cited (Murmur Creative, a web design and marketing studio; Mel Aubert and Steve Delong, wine writers) all either state or imply that there isn't a satisfactory answer (Delong Wine: "The New York Times and Slate don’t capitalize the names of grape varieties but practically everyone else does. [...] I seem to revisit this question every couple of years without satisfaction" and he's right that nobody is expecting us to write Vitis vinifera 'Cabernet Sauvignon' everywhere). In books, the shift to capitalisation really took off in the 1970s as the Ngrams show, but interestingly, the lower-case forms have persisted predominantly in US English sources; compare US English and British English, and English overall. Another complication is that while Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc are colour mutations of the 'Pinot' cultivar, and so we might say that we can use lower case for the colour descriptors (noir, blanc, gris, vert etc.) The same does not apply to Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Vert - which are separate cultivars. The existence of exceptions like this (there are many others) makes this difficult to apply as a blanket rule.—Jon (talk) 23:28, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Note: WikiProject Food and drink has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 11:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Note: WikiProject Wine has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 11:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Note: WikiProject Plants has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 11:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose – Since sources as discussed above clearly show capitalization to be optional, inconsistent, and not necessary, we default to lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 20:52, 5 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

References edit

  • Safire, William (25 August 1985). "On Language: Wines Without Caps". The New York Times Magazine. p. 12. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  • Robinson, Jancis (2015). "vine varieties". In Jancis Robinson; Julia Harding (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Wine (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 791–2. ISBN 978-0-198-70538-3. LCCN 2015941385. OCLC 908334498. OL 28570933M. Wikidata Q7755792.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Late comment on proposed redirect edit

I see a lot of good arguments in the recent discussion on a proposed redirect. However, I think a critical point is missing. The Wikipedia Manuel of Style explicitly states:

"Cultivar and cultivar group names of plants are not italicized, and are capitalized (including the word Group in the name); cultivar names appear within single quotes (Malus domestica 'Red Delicious'), while cultivar groups do not (Cynara cardunculus Scolymus Group)."

Per the MOS, grape cultivars should have the first letter of each word in their name capitalized every time. I understand that there are no firm style rules outside of Wikipedia, but this page should conform to the Wikipedia Manual of Style for cultivars. QuintinK (talk) 15:23, 16 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Pinot Nero edit

The article starts, "Pinot noir or Pinot nero is a red-wine ... The name is derived from the French words for pine and black." However 'Pinot nero' is Italian rather than French. Two questions.

  1. Should we add the Italian translation for a grape that is normally called by its French name?
  2. If yes, where should we put this translation?

One possibility is to add a section with other language names such as the German Spätburgunder. OrewaTel (talk) 13:45, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply