Wine Arcana

Grape

Pineau d’Aunis

Also known as Chenin noir

Pineau d’Aunis is a dark-skinned Loire grape used for light-coloured red and rosé wines, and sometimes for sparkling-wine base. The name also carries an unusually tangled history: for part of the late nineteenth century, the variety was more often called Chenin noir.

History and identity

Plantgrape lists Pineau d’Aunis as a French wine grape of the Loire Valley and records no officially recognized synonym in France or elsewhere in the European Union. The historical name Chenin noir is still useful when reading older sources, but it has fallen out of ordinary use. It should not be confused with Chenin Blanc, whose name became the enduring one for the white Loire variety.

The surviving nineteenth-century record is difficult partly because pinot and pineau were then written for both Burgundy and Loire grapes. Henri Galinié traces the name Pineau d’Aunis through references from the early nineteenth century, then follows the late-century preference for Chenin noir as ampelographers tried to separate Loire plants from Burgundian Pinots. The earlier name returned during the twentieth century as that terminology became more settled.1. Henri Galinié, Le Pineau d’Aunis, Recherches sur l’histoire des cépages de Loire, 1, 2014, especially the résumé, abbreviated version, and chronological discussion of nineteenth-century names and provenance.

That history does not establish the popular stories about a vine selected at a priory near Dampierre, or about Henry III Plantagenet sending its wine to England. Galinié rejects those accounts. His own proposal—that the variety came to the Loire from or through Aunis near La Rochelle, with its deeper origin to be sought in southwestern France—is explicitly a hypothesis, not a settled birthplace.1. Henri Galinié, Le Pineau d’Aunis, Recherches sur l’histoire des cépages de Loire, 1, 2014, especially the résumé, abbreviated version, and chronological discussion of nineteenth-century names and provenance.

Viticulture

Pineau d’Aunis breaks bud about eight days after Chasselas and reaches mid-season maturity roughly two and a half weeks after it, in Plantgrape’s comparative system. It is moderately vigorous and fertile when pruned short, but production can alternate from one year to the next. Compact bunches make grey rot a concern; the variety can also be susceptible to browning and, in some sites, chlorosis.

The small berries and medium bunches do not automatically produce a dark wine. Plantgrape describes the finished wines as light and not very coloured, and warns that quality falls quickly as yields rise. Crop level is therefore an important practical choice, since excessive production risks lowering quality.

Wine character and cellar choices

Pineau d’Aunis is associated with pale reds, rosés, and base wines for sparkling wine.

Where it is grown and its modern return

The grape’s historic Loire range includes the Vendômois and parts of the central Loire. Galinié’s review describes it as a minor presence in the nineteenth-century Saumurois, where Cabernet Franc was more important. In the “Aire géographique” passage he reproduces, Alfred Bouchard’s 1901 notice attributes the disappearance of Chenin noir from some Anjou and Chinonais vineyards to the Cabernets’ more full-bodied wines.1. Henri Galinié, Le Pineau d’Aunis, Recherches sur l’histoire des cépages de Loire, 1, 2014, especially the résumé, abbreviated version, and chronological discussion of nineteenth-century names and provenance.

Plantgrape records 448 hectares in France in 2018, down from the 1,741 hectares recorded in 1958. It also records a 150-clone conservatory planted in the Vendômois in 1997. Galinié notes renewed interest among attentive growers late in the twentieth century.1. Henri Galinié, Le Pineau d’Aunis, Recherches sur l’histoire des cépages de Loire, 1, 2014, especially the résumé, abbreviated version, and chronological discussion of nineteenth-century names and provenance.

Sources