Blanc de Noirs Champagne (Pinot Noir and/or Meunier)

Making white wine from black grapes is old practice in Champagne. The INAO specification for the appellation (2026 text) cites canon Godinot, who set out the Champagne method in 1718 and specified that its white wines were made with black grapes, adding: "Quand les raisins sont coupés, plus tôt ils sont pressurés, plus le vin est blanc" (the sooner the cut grapes are pressed, the whiter the wine). Decanter's December 2025 blanc de noirs panel report says that gently pressing whole bunches to extract almost no colour from the skins was a speciality in the time of Dom Pérignon, in the 17th century. Among prestige cuvées, Bollinger dates the first vintage of its Vieilles Vignes Françaises to 1969, and Krug made the first Clos d'Ambonnay in 1995 after buying the walled vineyard in 1994, revealing the wine in 2007.

• Bollinger Managing Director Charles-Armand de Belenet, on the house website: "It is an authentic taste that Bollinger has enhanced since 1969, the first vintage of this cuvée."
• Krug says Rémi and Henri Krug found the Clos d'Ambonnay in 1991 after a seven-year search, bought it in 1994 and made the first Clos d'Ambonnay in 1995, revealed in 2007; the plot has been walled since 1766
• Bollinger says its two clos in Aÿ, Chaudes Terres and Clos Saint-Jacques, survived the phylloxera outbreak; historically 3 parcels resisted, and 2 remain today

The Comité Champagne says Pinot Noir is the dominant grape in the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Bar and that it thrives on cool, chalky soil. The Montagne de Reims surrounds Reims like a half-moon, and Pinot Noir is its most common variety. In the Côte des Bar, south-east of Troyes, Pinot Noir made up 83% of the vines, per the Comité Champagne (accessed 2026). In the Marne Valley, the area furthest east, near Épernay, is mainly planted with Pinot Noir, while Meunier becomes dominant further west; the Comité Champagne links Meunier to soils with more clay, such as in the Marne Valley. Decanter's December 2025 panel report names the Montagne de Reims, the Marne Valley and the Côte des Bar as regions whose Pinot Noir and Meunier yield a wide diversity of blanc de noirs styles. The Comité Champagne describes a dual climate with continental and oceanic influences and an average annual temperature of 11°C (accessed 2026), and places Reims at a latitude of 49°5 north and Épernay at 49°.

• Ambonnay, Aÿ, Bouzy, Verzenay and Mailly-Champagne are among the 17 communes whose wines may carry the grand cru mention under the INAO specification (2026 text)
• Chalk is highly porous and stores 300-400 litres of water per m3, and it draws in water through capillary action, which the Comité Champagne says naturally regulates the vine's water consumption (accessed 2026)
• Mailly Grand Cru says its vineyards extend over more than 70 hectares, located wholly in Mailly-Champagne, planted to 75% Pinot Noir and 25% Chardonnay (Mailly website, accessed 2026)
• Meunier is less susceptible to frost than the other two main varieties because its bud burst happens later, according to the Comité Champagne

Blanc de Noirs may come from Pinot Noir, Meunier or both. The Comité Champagne says wines made with Pinot Noir have distinctive aromas of red fruits and flowers (rose, violet), while Meunier produces supple, fruity wines with aromas of yellow fruits that tend to age more quickly than wines made from the other two main varieties. Even when a grape is black-skinned, its juice is white, so colour depends on pressing: the whole clusters are pressed as carefully and gently as possible so as not to colour the juice through excessive contact time with the skins. The Comité Champagne calls Blanc de Noirs vinous, a wine with a powerful body, in contrast to lighter, more aerial wines. Writing for Decanter in December 2025, Chris Mercer said blanc de noirs sparkling wines tend to show more red fruit and a more solid structure and fuller mouthfeel than blanc de blancs, while vintage, vineyard location, harvest strategy, fermentation methods and lees ageing can vary the profile.

• Pinot Noir: distinctive aromas of red fruits and flowers such as rose and violet (Comité Champagne)
• Meunier: supple, fruity wines with yellow-fruit aromas that tend to age more quickly (Comité Champagne); Decanter reported in February 2024 that single-varietal Meunier wines are now a fixture in independent Champagne
• Pressing is carried out in two stages, the cuvée (first pressing juice) and the taille (second), separately by grape variety and by growth (Comité Champagne)
• Decanter's December 2025 blanc de noirs panel admitted Champagnes made from 100% red grapes: Pinot Noir and/or Meunier

Bollinger makes Vieilles Vignes Françaises from two Grand Cru clos of ungrafted Pinot Noir in Aÿ, Chaudes Terres and Clos Saint-Jacques. The house says the land is worked by hand with the help of a draught horse, that the vines are planted en foule by the layering method known as provignage, and that the wine is a Blanc de Noirs aged in the cellar for at least five years. Bollinger's page for the 2014 vintage gives 100% Grand Cru Pinot Noir fermented entirely in aged oak barrels, a dosage of 4 grams per litre and 1865 numbered bottles. Krug Clos d'Ambonnay comes from a single walled plot of 0.68 hectare of Pinot Noir in Ambonnay, a village Krug calls one of the most distinguished for Pinot Noir in Champagne. In Ambonnay, Decanter's Tom Hewson reported in February 2024 that the grower Egly-Ouriet farms a 10-hectare estate consisting primarily of Pinot Noir in Ambonnay, ferments its grand cru wines in barrel and makes a Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru. In Mailly-Champagne, Mailly Grand Cru, founded in 1929 by 24 local growers and describing itself as one of the oldest cooperatives in Champagne, makes a Blanc de Pinot Noir from named sites on predominantly north-facing slopes.

• Bollinger Vieilles Vignes Françaises: 100% Pinot Noir from 31 ares in two walled clos in Aÿ; first vintage 1969; the 2014 release was 1865 numbered bottles with a dosage of 4 g/L (Bollinger website, accessed 2026)
• Krug Clos d'Ambonnay: Pinot Noir from a 0.68-hectare walled plot in Ambonnay, purchased 1994, first vintage 1995, revealed 2007 (Krug website, accessed 2026)
• Egly-Ouriet: a récoltant-manipulant (grower) with Pinot Noir in Ambonnay and parcels in Bouzy and Verzenay; its range includes a Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru (Decanter, February 2024)
• Mailly Grand Cru Blanc de Pinot Noir: first-press wine, tank- and barrel-aged separately, with reserve wines aged in vats in a solera system (Mailly website, accessed 2026)

The INAO specification for Champagne AOC (2026 text) states that white Champagnes may come from a blend of white and black grapes, from white grapes only (blanc de blancs) or from black grapes only (blanc de noirs). The Comité Champagne defines a Champagne Blanc de Noirs as a wine made exclusively from dark-skinned grapes such as Pinot Noir and/or Meunier. The general ageing rules apply: release only after at least 15 months of maturation counted from tirage, and at least 36 months for vintage wines (INAO, 2026 text). The Comité Champagne says that in practice ageing is nearly always longer: 2-3 years for non-vintage wines and 4-10 years for vintage Champagne. The appellation covered 34,200 hectares in 2025, across 5 départements and 319 villages, according to the Comité Champagne; the départements are Marne, Aube, Aisne, Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne.

• A single grape variety may appear on a Champagne label only if all the grapes used for the base wines are of that variety, in characters no taller than 3 millimetres and no more than half the size of the appellation name (INAO, 2026 text)
• 17 communes, including Ambonnay, Aÿ, Bouzy and Verzenay, may use the grand cru mention, and 42 further communes may use the premier cru mention (INAO, 2026 text)
• The Comité Champagne says the Decree of 1 July 1952 reserved grand cru for municipalities rated 100% and premier cru for those rated 90 to 100%; the INAO scrapped the cru scale in 2010, but municipalities with those designations could retain them
• Champagne still harvests fully by hand because the legislation requires clusters to reach the pressing centre whole, according to the Comité Champagne; the INAO text prohibits any harvesting method that does not pick whole bunches

The Comité Champagne suggests Blanc de Noirs for intimate occasions, such as a dinner with loved ones where a heart-warming family dish is served, and for great occasions such as Christmas Eve, when it enhances meat dishes, roasts and stews; its favourite pairing is crisp roast suckling pig. In Decanter's December 2025 panel report, Fiona Beckett named roast chicken, a richly creamy risotto with truffles and Vacherin Mont d'Or as matches for blanc de noirs. The Comité Champagne tasting guide describes tones from lemon yellow to golden yellow and profiles that include fruity, floral, spicy, vinous, full-bodied, structured and dense. Visitors to the region can see the Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list on 4 July 2015; the historic hillside vineyards in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ are one of the three ensembles chosen for the nomination.

• The three ensembles in the UNESCO nomination are the historic hillside vineyards in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Saint-Nicaise Hill in Reims and Avenue de Champagne in Épernay (Comité Champagne)
• Mailly Grand Cru says its growers began digging its cellars 19 metres underground in the winter of 1931-1932 (Mailly website, accessed 2026)
• Krug recommends serving its Champagnes between 9°C and 12°C, and Bollinger recommends 10 to 12°C for Vieilles Vignes Françaises 2014 (producer websites, accessed 2026)
• In the Comité Champagne's vinous profile, "the wine’s character and substance prevail over its effervescence"

Primary sources (Comité Champagne, INAO, and the producers' own websites for their own cuvées): https://www.champagne.fr/en/champagne-tasting/choosing-your-champagne/blanc-de-noirs, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/a-great-blended-wine/champagne-and-its-grape-varieties, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/a-great-blended-wine/the-champagne-region, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/the-champagne-terroir/champagne-and-its-soil, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/the-champagne-terroir/champagne-and-its-climate, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/how-champagne-is-made/pressing, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/how-champagne-is-made/maturation, https://www.champagne.fr/en/champagne-frequently-asked-questions?nid=608, https://www.champagne.fr/en/visit-champagne/life-in-champagne/champagne-world-heritage, https://extranet.inao.gouv.fr/fichier/pno-CDC-Champagne-cn260618.pdf, https://www.champagne.fr/en/find-out-more/champagne-at-a-glance, https://www.champagne-bollinger.com/en/the-collection/vieilles-vignes-francaises, https://www.champagne-bollinger.com/en/wine/vieilles-vignes-francaises-2014, https://www.krug.com/en-int/champagne/krug-clos-dambonnay-1995, https://www.champagne-mailly.com/en/roots-grand-cru/, https://www.champagne-mailly.com/en/our-cuvees/blanc-de-pinot-noir/, https://www.champagne-mailly.com/en/human-adventure/. Secondary sources: https://www.decanter.com/learn/blanc-de-noirs-champagne-vs-blanc-de-blancs-44916/, https://www.decanter.com/premium/champagne-egly-ouriet-maestro-of-the-montagne-de-reims-522799/, https://www.decanter.com/premium/blanc-de-noirs-champagne-panel-tasting-results-572376/. The INAO Champagne text is the published national-opposition version of the specification. Last verified 2026-09-24