Blanc de Noirs

The idea of a white wine from red grapes

Most of the colour in a red grape sits in the skin. The juice of a Pinot Noir berry, like the juice of a Pinot Meunier berry, is essentially clear. If you pick the bunches, press them gently and keep the juice off the skins, you get a white liquid that ferments into a white wine. This is how Blanc de Noirs is made, and it has been a Champagne tradition for centuries, particularly in the Aube and the Côte des Bar where Pinot Noir dominates.

The phrase contrasts with Blanc de Blancs, which means a white wine from white grapes, and with a regular white blend. In a Blanc de Noirs, the winemaker accepts the varietal character of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, which is structurally more powerful and aromatically more berry-driven than Chardonnay.

How it is made in the UK

The whole-cluster pressing is the key. UK producers press gently, often with a pneumatic press running a low-pressure cycle for the first half of the cycle and a slightly higher cycle for the second. The aim is to extract clean juice with minimal phenolic pickup. The juice is then settled, racked and fermented cool, very much like a Blanc de Blancs base wine.

For the second fermentation, the same logic as Champagne applies. Base wines are blended to a house style, the lique de tirage is added and the wine is bottled under crown cap for the secondary fermentation and the long lees ageing. Disgorgement and dosage complete the process, with the dosage level often set a touch higher than for a Blanc de Blancs because the natural acidity of Pinot-dominated blends tends to be marginally lower than 100 percent Chardonnay.

A note on Pinot Meunier

Pinot Meunier is a close relative of Pinot Noir, with a slightly downy leaf (the meunier part means miller) and a habit of budding later, which is a small insurance against late spring frosts. It brings red fruit, roundness and a softer acid profile. In the UK, plantings are still much smaller than in Champagne, but Meunier is gaining ground because it ripens well in cooler sites and adds a distinct red-fruited charm to blends. Several UK houses, including Hambledon and Gusbourne, have a Meunier-led Blanc de Noirs in their range.

Flavour profile and ageing

A young English Blanc de Noirs shows red apple, white peach, redcurrant and a touch of white pepper. With lees ageing, the fruit deepens into baked apple, pastry, brioche and a soft nutty character. A prestige Blanc de Noirs from a warm vintage, such as the Ridgeview Marksman or the Gusbourne Pinot Noir-led cuvée, can age for a decade or more, gaining complexity.

Because Pinot Noir has more protein than Chardonnay, the mousse in a Blanc de Noirs tends to be richer and more voluminous than a Blanc de Blancs from the same producer. Some drinkers love this; others prefer the laser-fine bubbles of a 100 percent Chardonnay. Both are legitimate expressions of cool-climate winemaking.

UK examples and listings

Ridgeview's Blanc de Noirs is one of the most awarded English sparkling wines of the last decade and is exported to more than twenty countries. Gusbourne's Blanc de Noirs, Hambledon's Classic Cuvée, and Chapel Down's Pinot Noir-led kit are all strong commercial examples. Off-trade listings are common at Majestic, The Wine Society, Waitrose and the more specialist online merchants. On-trade, the style is widely available at high-end restaurants in London, Brighton, Bristol and Edinburgh.