Anne asks why is there the red grape Pinot Noir in my white sparkling?

After recently recommending a sparkling wine, I was asked how you can have white bubbly made from the red Pinot Noir grape?

Very valid question with an answer that touches on the basis of winemaking: different grapes are different colours, as we know, but that colour is only skin deep. The juice inside any red grapes will still be white.

Now, when you make any red wine, the colour of the wine is only extracted through extended contact with the red skins when it is being made. If you press the juice out at the start, throw away the skins and let the wine ferment without the skins…it will be white.

That is what happens in the winemaking process in Champagne. Of the three grapes used in the complicated blending of champagne production in the Champagne region of France, two are in fact red (Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier). The other single white grape is none other than Chardonnay. You might have seen champagne labels with “blanc de noir” (white from black) on them? This means it is a white wine from a black/red Pinot grape.

The other is “blanc de blanc”, so a “white from white”, meaning it is a champagne made from chardonnay.

This can be done for normal table wines as well. I have tried a German wine called “Illusion” from one of the best German producers from the Ahr, Meyer Näkel, and it is a white Pinot noir…hence the illusion. It goes for about €16 a bottle and is worth the try, even just for the show-off value.

Hope that clears some things up for you.

As always, I am open to feedback and questions.