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California Wine Atlas

Pinot Noir

Red wine grape · reported 2000–2025

Further reading: VIVC catalog entry

Pinot Noir is a French red grape, one parent Savagnin Blanc, the other unrecorded, grown in cool climates worldwide for its light body and perfume. California has made it a major variety: bearing acreage nearly quadrupled from 11,771 acres in 2000 to 44,397 acres in the latest report, and it is now planted in 41 counties, more than any other variety in this atlas, with 34 growers and material tracked in 46 maturity-survey years across 213 regions, by far the most closely monitored ripening variety in the state's data. It is planted mainly in the state's cooler coastal regions and is bottled almost entirely as a varietal wine.

What kind of grape this is

Species
VITIS VINIFERA LINNÉ SUBSP. SATIVA (DE CANDOLLE) HEGI
Berry color
NOIR
Country of origin
FRANCE
Parentage
unknown×SAVAGNIN BLANC

confirmed by DNA markers

Synonyms
447

names this grape is known by elsewhere, per VIVC

Approved on a US label
Pinot noir

the names TTB permits on a bottle

FPS selections
98

distinct clones and selections held at UC Davis

What is published

Counts describe what this atlas holds for Pinot Noir, not what California grows. A zero is a published answer: it means the source names the grape and reports nothing under it, or does not name it at all.

863

county-years of acreage

41 counties, 44,397 bearing acres in 2025

433

district-years of crush

17 of 17 crush districts, 26 crop years

433

district-years of Brix

tonnage-weighted at the crusher, Crush Report Table 3

181

producers in this atlas

producers whose curated wine list names it — a curated roster of 2,772 producers, not a census of California

213

regions with a maturity date

modeled, 46 years

Acreage in California

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Counties and concentration

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Where it is planted

Reported by county — never by AVA

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Share of each county's vineyard

Reported by county — never by AVA

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The counties

Reported by county — never by AVA

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Tonnage and price by district

Reported by crush district — never by county or AVA

All 17 districts on one axis →

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Brix at the crusher

Reported by crush district — never by county or AVA

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Modeled ripening date, year by year

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Growers in this atlas's roster

and 169 more in the roster.

181 of this atlas’s 2772 curated producers, 50 of them with a named wine in the atlas made from it. A roster is not a census — this is who the atlas has entered, not who grows the grape in California.