Red grape
Pinot Noir
How to read this
Capitals mark the stressed syllable. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.
Pinot Noir, the grape of Burgundy, came to Bordeaux vineyards as “pinot de Bourgogne”: at Saint-Émilion by 1886, from Romanée-Conti, and in a Graves cru named Pontac-Pinot by 1908.
Pinot is the grape of Burgundy, and one of the great parents of western European vines: DNA markers show that Pinot and Gouais Blanc are the parents of Chardonnay (Bowers and colleagues, Science, 1999). The guide of Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, records it in the Gironde under 3 names: “pinot de Bourgogne”, “pineau noir”, and the “pinots de Bourgogne” of a cru that took the grape’s name. None of these entries states the color, so the reading Pinot Noir rests on the name and is likely.
In 1886 the guide described the cru de Cadet at Saint-Émilion, about 15 hectares of pressac, merlot, and bouchet, to which Albert Piola had added Médoc cabernet-sauvignon and “pinot de Bourgogne venant du vignoble de Romanée-Conti”, Pinot from the Romanée-Conti vineyard. In 1893 the domaine de Mangot had added the “franc pineau ou pineau noir” that Dr. Guyot recommended. In 1908 Édouard Féret, in his book on the red and white wines of the Graves, found at Villenave-d’Ornon a cru called Pontac-Pinot, planted with Burgundy pinots “whose praise no longer needs to be made.”
There may be an older layer. As Auguste Petit-Lafitte reported in 1868, the baron de Secondat, writing in 1785, received vine plants from Nuits and Beaune and from Champagne and found that all were his “Massoutet”, the vine called Pineau at Nuits and Beaune. William Franck, the Bordeaux wine merchant whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, counted the Massoutet among the best red grapes of the Gironde. Whether every Gironde Massoutet was Pinot is open: in 1893 Cocks and Féret attached other names to it, some shared with other vines.
Oldest record in my library: “Pineau”, 1763, in Maupin, Nouvelle méthode de cultiver la vigne (the Burgundy name of the Morillon noir); “le pineau-noir”, 1816, in André Jullien, Topographie de tous les vignobles connus (Chinon); in the Gironde, Cocks and Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins, 5th edition, 1886 (cru de Cadet, Saint-Émilion); older Gironde witnesses if the Massoutet is Pinot: abbé Bellet, 1736 (“maton ou massoutet”), as printed in Viala and Vermorel, 1910, and the baron de Secondat, 1785
The family
Parents unknown.
Pinot Noir
The discovery: In 1999, Bowers and colleagues showed with DNA markers that Pinot and Gouais Blanc are the parents of Chardonnay (Science 285).
The names
In today’s rules
Not named in the rules of any Bordeaux appellation today.
In the books
“to which Mr. Albert Piola added a certain quantity of Médoc cabernet-sauvignon and of Burgundy pinot coming from the Romanée-Conti vineyard”
auxquels M. Albert Piola a adjoint une certaine quantité de cabernet - sauvignon du Médoc et de pinot de Bourgogne venant du vignoble de Romanée - Conti
“to which were added the franc pineau or pineau noir, so recommended by Dr. Guyot”
auxquels ont été ajoutés le franc pineau ou pineau noir , si préconisé par le Dr Guyot
“Another cru, called Pontac-Pinot, is planted with Burgundy pinots whose praise no longer needs to be made.”
Un autre cru appelé Pontac-Pinot est complanté de pinots de Bourgogne dont l'éloge n'est plus à faire.
My library records it planted at 2 estates, and one of them has a page here:
Sources
- Bowers, J.E.; Boursiquot, J.-M.; This, P.; Chu, K.; Johansson, H.; Meredith, C. (1999), Historical genetics: the parentage of Chardonnay, Gamay, and other wine grapes of northeastern France, Science 285:1562-1565
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 2455, accessed October 2026 (Chardonnay, pedigree confirmed by markers: Heunisch Weiss x Pinot)
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 5th ed., 1886, Saint-Émilion, cru de Cadet
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 6th ed., 1893, domaine de Mangot, p. 405
- Édouard Féret, Les vins des Graves rouges et blancs, 1908, Villenave-d'Ornon, p. 40
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 9th ed., 1922, Villenave-d'Ornon, p. 365
- Auguste Petit-Lafitte, La vigne dans le Bordelais, 1868, 'F. Le Massoutet', pp. 485-486, quoting the baron de Secondat
- Wilhelm (William) Franck, Traité sur les vins du Médoc, 1st ed., 1824, ch. 2
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 6th ed., 1893, 'Cépages de vignes rouges', p. 17
- Maupin, Nouvelle méthode de cultiver la vigne, 1763
- Pierre Viala & Victor Vermorel, Ampélographie, t. I, Paris, Masson, 1910, 'Histoire de l'ampélographie' (Tallavignes), p. 537 note, printing abbé Bellet's 1736 catalog of the vines of Bordeaux and Cadillac (dated 1736 by Petit-Lafitte, La vigne dans le Bordelais, 1868)
- André Jullien, Topographie de tous les vignobles connus, 1st ed., 1816, Indre-et-Loire
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