Blanc de Noir – the white wine made from blue grapes

The name and production “Blanc de Noir” comes from France, mainly from Champagne. The fine sparkling wine of the same name is primarily made from three grape varieties: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier. The latter are blue grapes.

When making the base wines, care is taken to ensure that the grape juice (must) does not come into contact with the skin of the berries, as this contains the dye. Even during the harvest, you take great care to ensure that the skins are not damaged so that no dye from the skin gets into the must. Further production then proceeds like with white wine. Cool fermentation, followed by a short ripening stage on the fine yeast and storage in stainless steel tanks.

This results in a white wine with moderate acidity values ​​- blue grapes always have lower acidity values ​​than white wine varieties – which is supported by a beautiful fruit structure. In Austria, the leading variety Blauer Zweigelt is particularly suitable for the production of this specialty.

The Falkensteiner parade winery Dürnberg presents its Blanc de Noir with refreshing stone fruit, elegant acidity and the lightness of being when it comes to the alcohol value. From Horitschon comes the slightly stronger version from the top organic red winery Iby: The Blaufränkisch Herzenswunsch is a great, strong, fruity and spicy white wine. Eva Iby had to wait 10 years until her husband Anton fulfilled her heart’s desire and set about producing this Blanc de Noir.

The author of these lines also seems to think that a local grape variety is predestined for this type of winemaking: the Blauer Portugieser – light, fruity with cherries and berries and moderate in terms of acidity. Maybe someone will dare to go over it.