Handle with care

Handle with care

Is Pinot Noir's reputation as the heartbreak grape really justified?

Describing Pinot Noir as the heartbreak grape has been a fashion for so long that it's acquired the status of ‘conventional wisdom'. The winelands of the New World abound with stories of hopes dashed and fortunes lost in pursuit of the new hill of Corton.

True, Pinot doesn't respond well to being incorrectly sited or poorly made. Other varieties are more tolerant of viticultural and oenological ineptitude. Still, this hardly justifies damning a grape simply because it has strong residential preferences.

Pinot does well in the right places, even when it is farmed by some of the laziest, most hide-bound, unimaginative and incompetent human beings on earth. If this was not so, a significant percentage of red Burgundy would be undrinkable. (Instead, while much is disappointing, it's no worse than a mediocre red from Médoc.)

Pinot is sensitive to climate - but then, so is Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Meunier and a whole host of other varieties.

If you get the climate part right, handle the viticulture correctly (and in particular if you manage crop size carefully) and don't try to vinify it like Cabernet, the chances are you'll get a creditable enough result.

Ask the Kiwis: in the past decade they've produced more drinkable Pinot (for a lot less money) than generations of growers in the Côte d'Or.

The New World's love affair with the so-called noble cultivars began with several that were more tolerant of poor siting and maladroit handling than Pinot Noir. Cabernet, Chardonnay and Shiraz still produce something commercially acceptable when the weather has been a little too warm or the yields a little too generous.

For much of the second half of the 20th century, California, Australia and South Africa provided more than sufficient proof of the forgiving nature of these varieties.

Pinot - being a red (and therefore enjoying a higher profile) - put an end to that myth. However, if anyone had thought about it carefully, the same might have been said of Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc.

It wasn't all that obvious at first because there were lower expectations about Sauvignon (until New Zealand showed what could be done). Riesling was something of a special case because Australia made a virtue of the terpene notes that are overwhelmingly present in wines which come from warmer locations.

But those big diesel-like Rieslings from the Clare and Eden Valleys would only beat the great wines of the Rhine and Mosel in a blind tasting if the panellists were massively patriotic - or simply pomp-joggies.

Pinot Noir is not a Land Rover nor a Prado - it's not forgiving of rough handling and it's designed for certain places and certain conditions. There are a great number of cars you wouldn't take bundu-bashing.

Certainly, you wouldn't hold Ferrari liable if some idiot cracked the sump and wrecked the suspension of one on a farm road. So why do we blame Pinot Noir when it doesn't respond well to potholes and middle-mannetjies? And why do we not see that when Merlot disappoints, it's no different from poorly sited Pinot (or Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc).

It's time we shifted the blame from the vehicle to the driver, from the variety to the viticulturist. Once we do this, we will come to realise that there's absolutely no reason to pay as much as we do for simple, easy-to-drink Pinot.

This vinous ‘triumph' has nothing to do with a brave individual defying the odds - it's simply the result of a more thoughtful choice of vineyard site and intelligent grape handling. The persistence of the heartbreak grape myth is the achievement of the Pinot producers themselves: it provides a justification for their outrageous pricing.

Michael Fridjhon is a leading wine writer and consultant with extensive international judging experience.