History
The history of Pinot Blanc is tangled in mystery and misunderstanding. This white wine grape is essentially a mutation, but sharing mostly the same DNA with Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. Although some argue for an Alsace provenance, Pinot Blanc’s origin is most likely in Burgundy, where it developed as a white-berried mutation of Pinot Noir. Given the Pinot family’s predilection for mutation, it is certainly possible that white-berried Pinot vines developed in more than one region. Similarly, Pinot Gris developed similarly as a pink-berried mutation and has found enthusiastic acceptance in the world market as Pinot Gris or … Pinot Grigio.
California Pinot Blanc Timeline
Will Silvear adds plantings of Pinot Blanc (and Pinot Noir) to existing plantings of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc in “The Lower Vineyard” (originally planted in 1919 and now known as Chalone Vineyard) on the north slope of Gavilan Peak in Monterey County.
French ampelographer Dr. Pierre Galet identifies so-called "Pinot Blanc" in the experimental vineyard at U.C. Davis as Melon. The school acknowledged its error in 1984, when it alerted growers who had purchased the university's "Pinot Blanc" rootstock to the mistake. Nevertheless, most wineries continued to call the wine made from their fruit "Pinot Blanc."
Per the then-BATF, "Pinot Blanc" is no longer an acceptable alternative name for a wine made from Melon grapes, although the winery could call it Melon de Bourgogne so long as the region of origin was connected to the name, such as "Napa Valley Melon de Bourgogne." Since paperwork surrounding BATF's regulatory process in this affair made it clear that the agency was then aware that most of California's Pinot Blanc vines were really Melon, it's conceivable that wineries would be compelled to discontinue use of the Pinot Blanc name if they couldn't certify that the grapes used were, in fact, varietally true. In practice, nothing really happened until the following year.
California state agricultural officials appear to ignore the controversy entirely, with their annual report stating that total acreage (bearing and non-bearing) of Pinot Blanc wine grapes in California was 415 ha/ 1,025 acres, down from 430 ha/1,061 total acres in 1996. Melon grapes are not mentioned at all.
Pinot Blanc plantings stood at 104 ha/258 acres (103 ha/254 acres bearing and 2 ha/4 acres non-bearing) through year-end 2021, representing 0.06% of total vineyard plantings of all California wine grapes.
Pinot Blanc in California can be sooooo confusing! Case in point: today, and legally, wine labeled “Pinot Blanc'' can be made with any of the grape types historically understood as Pinot Blanc in the state. So, if a vineyard planted what was actually Melon de Bourgogne, albeit initially misidentified as Pinot Blanc, the wine can still be labeled Pinot Blanc. To confuse matters further, it is also entirely legal for these wines to be labeled Melon, now that the error is known. Most wineries continue to use the Pinot Blanc name, rather than the botanically correct Melon identification.
Interestingly, some wineries in California, particularly in the North Coast’s Carneros region, have established newer plantings of what has been correctly certified as actual Pinot Blanc vines. However, trying to actually determine which wines from the state are made from Melon but labeled Pinot Blanc, and which are made from the grapes of the correct designation remains a challenge; most winery websites don’t clarify the issue, and the bottles don’t either since the law simply doesn’t mandate such certainties. Ah the joys of true wine sleuthing!