One of the oldest cultivated varieties, Pinot Noir has grown in Burgundy for close to two thousand years, and it was the monks of Cîteaux who, from the twelfth century, read its ground clos by clos and drew the map of climats we still follow. Genetically it is a patriarch: crossed with the humble Gouais Blanc it fathered Chardonnay, among many others. But it is famously fragile — thin-skinned, early-budding, prone to rot and to mutation, faithful only to cool limestone.
Its wines trade colour and power for scent and silk: red cherry, rose and forest floor over fine tannin. It is the black soul of Champagne as much as the glory of the Côte d'Or, and for two centuries growers everywhere have chased it into their coolest corners — Germany's Spätburgunder, the volcanic hills of Oregon, the far south of Central Otago. Difficult, site-obsessed and rarely generous, it remains the benchmark against which every ambition in red wine is quietly measured.