If you ever drunk wine , you have probably heard of Pinot Noir already. It is one of the most acient variety and it is planted all around the World. Sometimes you need a couple of years to start to appreciate this grape but if you find the right style, I am sure you fall in love with it at that moment. Today I would like to help to find the right style, if you haven’t found it yet and show the differences between Old World (means the wine regions of Europe) and New World (everywhere else) Pinot Noirs.
First of all, let’s get to know better the variety itself: is a red wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. This is the species used most for wine making. Its home is Burgundy (aka Bourgogne) in France just south of Dijon. Its favourite soil type is limestone-rich chalky clay and because it is an early ripening grape, it prefers more intermediate climates with long, cool growing seasons. It has a thin skin that means the wine made out of it, is lighter in body with lower tannins as there isn’t as much in the skin as for example in Cabernet Sauvignon and the color of the grape skin is lighter too which will give a paler color on the wine as well. Of course as the wine ages (and some of them can age as long as 20 years or more!) the color will become a little bit darker and garnet.
To summerize it, the wines made of Pinot Noir are lighter in body, lower in tannins, and has red friuts flavour characteristic and always shows the soil type and the terroir where it is grown on the nose and on the palate. Old World Pinot Noir is generally more delicate, acidic, and earthy. Of course in the different regions, the winemakers are using different methods too, which will change the characteristics of the bottled wine.
One of the main difference is the climate: as in the Old World, Pinot Noir is mainly planted in cool climate regions like Burgundy, Champagne, Germany, now England and northern-Italy while in the New World they are planted on warmer regions (that doesn’t mean warm or hot regions but Pinot Noir is extremely fussy about that aspect) like California, Australia, northern-New Zealand and Argentina. Of course in some places the altitude plays a huge role for retaining acidity in the grapes.
And then we have the wine making differences between the Old and New World:
- in the Old World, Pinot Noir usually not blendedwith any other grapes to preserve the variety’s pure flavors. In the New World, Pinot Noir is occasionally blended with other grapes to balance out the acidic fruit and give the wines greater concentration and complexity. Altough we have to be careful as sometimes it is not stated on the label! Regarding that if Pinot Noir in the bottle is at least 75% present, than they don’t have to mark the other blended varieties on the label. That’s the case in a couple of regions like California.
- Old World wine makers usually don’t use as much of an oak influence than in the New World. Either less time the wine spend in oak barrel sor this barrels are already used 2 or 3 times before the wine goes into them. New World wines tend to be heavily oaked (usually they are using French and sometimes American oak barrels), which gives the wines additional flavors such as vanilla and baking spices.
- another important fact is the chosen yeast for the fermentation: Old World producers primarily use natural or wild yeasts, which give the wines earthiness and deeper complexity. By comparison, most New World Pinot Noir producers use cultured yeast, which produces fruity, cleaner-tasting wines and the end result will be a completly different style. For example in Burgundy many fine winemakers choose to ferment with whole grape clusters to increase tannin in their wines. This effort may result in bitterness early on, but results in wines that age even more than 20 years in the bottle later.
- during the tastings of these wines we can see differences in the acidity, tannin structure and alcohol level too: Old World wines have firmer tannins and taste more tart, particularly in their youth with less alcohol content (around 12-13% ABV). New World wines tend to be more approachable within the first few years of release because the tannins are softer and the acidity is lower but with a higher ABV, usually around 13-14% but sometimes it can go up to 15%.
As you can see there are many factors and aspects that can result a different style Pinot Noir. Although these differences that I have mentioned are generally true, you can see, a great deal is dependent of the winemaker and wineregion which means you can still find a more Burgundy style in New Zealand too. But if I may share my opinion, this is the beauty of the Wine World, everyone can find their preference in every corner of this planet.
