Pinot CountryThe vine (7)

Pinot noir précoce, Early Burgundy, Blauer Frühburgunder

An early-ripening pinot that comes in two to three weeks ahead of the rest. Germany kept it alive in the Ahr and on the Nahe when growers elsewhere pulled it out for cropping too lightly.

Gamay noir à jus blanc

Pinot's other well-known child, banished from the Côte d'Or by ducal edict and sent south to granite, where it built Beaujolais.

Meunier, Schwarzriesling, Müllerrebe

Pinot noir with white down on its shoot tips and leaves — meunier means miller, and the vine looks dusted with flour. It buds later, ripens earlier and survives a frosty Champagne spring that kills its parent.

Pinot Noir, Spätburgunder, Blauburgunder

A black grape from north-eastern France that ripens early, carries thin skin over tight pinecone-shaped bunches, and mutates more readily than almost any vine in cultivation.

Pinot Grigio, Grauburgunder, Ruländer

A colour sport of pinot: the berry loses most of its pigment and lands somewhere between grey, pink and bronze. Same vine, same bunch, different skin.

Pinot's child by Gouais blanc, and the white grape sharing almost every hill in this directory. Where pinot goes, it follows — Burgundy, Champagne, the Willamette, Bien Nacido, Central Otago.

Weissburgunder, Pinot bianco, Klevner

The white end of the family. A further mutation that can come from pinot gris or pinot noir and can go back the other way, which is why nurserymen watch their mother vines.