Wine · Medium strength
Pinot Noir
Cherry, earth, and silk — the red that broke a thousand hearts.
How to order it: Burgundy if you're flush, Oregon if you're smart.
Flavor profile
The proper serve
- Serve at 55–60°F (lightly chilled)
- Burgundy glass (wide bowl)
- 30 minutes open before serving
- Pairs: salmon, mushrooms, duck
- Fragile — finish the bottle today
The story
Burgundy's Cistercian monks spent the Middle Ages walling off vineyard parcels and tasting the differences between them, and Pinot Noir was the instrument of that obsession — a thin-skinned, mutation-prone, weather-sensitive grape that punishes ambition and rewards patience. It makes the most expensive red wines in the world along one modest slope, the Côte d'Or, and has humbled growers nearly everywhere else, though Oregon, New Zealand, and California's cooler corners have earned real standing. Its modern folk hero moment came in 2004, when the film Sideways delivered a love letter to Pinot and an insult to Merlot, and American sales moved accordingly. The heartbreak grape, they call it. The heartbreak is the point.
Adjacent pours