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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / wine blogging / Name that wine

Name that wine

by | 63 Comments

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Yesterday, I visited the Hearts and Hands winery on Lake Cayuga, not too far from where I live (as you might have guessed, my recent Galtitude was not unrelated to drinking).

I’d been once before but just for the regular tasting. This time we did the full barrel tasting tour, which involved speaking with the wine maker for an hour and a half, trying pinot from three different sites, trying wines made with various levels of destemming, and being able to ask any crazy question about wine-making that you ever thought of. It was great! If you have an inner Paul Giamatti, this is the place to indulge it. A local wine writer/tv celebrity, Evan Dawson, who is essentially a cross between Matt Lauer and Paul Giamatti did an excellent description of it all here.

They only make pinot and riesling at Hearts and Hands, but they decided they wanted to do a fuller bodied white, so they’ll be releasing a white wine made from pinot noir next year. We tried it and it was very good. Domaine Serene in Oregon makes one as well. They haven’t settled on a name yet and they’re taking suggestions.

This seems like a perfect challenge for Balloon Juice commenters. What would be a good name for a white wine made from pinot noir?

Reader Interactions

63Comments

  4. 4.

    El Cid

    Hmmm.

    What would be a good name for a white wine made from pinot noir?

    “Prescott School Mural”?

  11. 11.

    monkeyboy

    white wines made from dark skined grapes are normally called a ‘blanc de noir’, so in this case the standard name would be ‘blanc de pinot noir’.

    but how about ‘oreo wine’.

  13. 13.

    Peter

    So how were they? (The pinots and rieslings). I live in the Hudson Valley and the winemaking here is of a different sort for the most part. I like what I’ve had from up there; I think they make the best riesling in the US in the Finger Lakes.

  14. 14.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @monkeyboy:

    white wines made from dark skined grapes are normally called a ‘blanc de noir’, so in this case the standard name would be ‘blanc de pinot noir’.
    __
    but how about ‘oreo wine’.

    How about “Michael Steele’s Cow on the Tracks Night Train Express”?

  16. 16.

    scav

    pinot faded, because the actual white grape is pinot gris. go figure. The winery doesn’t really go in much for unusual names — and here I was wasting my time trying to work in hearts and black and white and coming up with Forgiveness and all sorts of similar blather. I still like π(not) for the graphic possibilities.

  18. 18.

    DougJ

    @Peter:

    The reserve pinot is fantastic, not just the best pinot noir ever made in the Finger Lakes but the best by a very wide margin. The regular pinot may be the second best pinot I’ve tried from the Finger Lakes.

    The special riesling we tried from barrel was fantastic, as good as FL rieslings get. The other rieslings I’ve had from them are good but not at the level of my very favorites (Weimer, Ravines, King’s Ferry).

    They also make a very nice brut rose champagne.

  20. 20.

    The Dangerman

    One White Pinot anagram is “Poet Within” (substantially better than “Hope Nitwit”)

  21. 21.

    Dead Ernest

    From Wikipedia;

    “Pinot gris is a bud sport of Pinot noir, presumably representing a somatic mutation in either the VvMYBA1 or VvMYBA2 genes that control grape colour.”

    so maybe – ‘Pinot Gris or Gris you not VvMYAB1?’

  23. 23.

    Tom levenson

    The blanc de noir suggestion above is the right conventional one, but I wonder if we can’t play with that a bit.

    How about Pinot Beyond The Pale, which gets a nice Siberia/Lantsman edge to the whole notion.

  27. 27.

    Brachiator

    What would be a good name for a white wine made from pinot noir?

    Hmmm. How about “Coeur de Pinot,” playing on the name of the winery, Hearts and Hands.

  35. 35.

    Pooh

    Not sure, but just wanted to say that the Domane Serene “Jerusalem Hill” Pinot Noir is the best wine I’ve ever had in my life.

  37. 37.

    PopeRatzy

    How about “utter shite” or abomination.

    White wine made from red grapes should be outlawed. The same thinking gave us White Zinfandel.

  38. 38.

    Walker

    I live in the FL region, but have never been a wine fan. The wife and I like hard cider, but the local stuff (Bellwether) is too “winy”. So I have started brewing my own.

  41. 41.

    Cat Lady

    I think I’d really like Crush Camp. Daily punchdowns sound like that’d be in right in my wheelhouse, although I guess it probably has something to do with the grapes.

  43. 43.

    TrishB

    I believe there’s already one wine from pinot noir that can commonly be called Champagne. Oh wait, upstate isn’t the Champagne region, no matter how much I miss it.

  46. 46.

    HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist

    Just jiving on a “noir” and a white wine:

    Black & White
    Noir et Blanc (fr. “black and white”)
    Magpie (bird that nicely contrasts black and white)
    La Pie (fr. “magpie”…could tie in a with a cute logo)
    Haut Contraste (fr. “high contrast”)

  47. 47.

    HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist

    Last time I tried this, my comment/suggestions didn’t make it :(

    So one more time, jiving on “noir” and white:

    Black & White
    Blanc et Noir
    Magpie (cute black and white animal, easy to logo-ize)
    La Pie (fr. for “Magpie”, same as above, um, only French)

  48. 48.

    HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist

    Multiple posts brought to you by the Committee for Redundancy Committee.

    Apparently.

  50. 50.

    That Other Mike

    What would be a good name for a white wine made from pinot noir?

    “I love you delicious wine, you’re my best mate ever, vintage 2010”?

    While we’re on the subject of wine, in all seriousness, try English wine. It’s a blossoming industry, which can credibly compete in quality with the best of the continental wines.

  53. 53.

    Derek

    @HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist:

    Magpie is my favorite suggestion so far.

    To whoever said they are a hard cider person: Disgusting. You are terrible.

    ETA: A friend of mine contends that all the best wines are the ones with animals on the label. So, another plus for “Magpie.” Although her friend had some other label-based theory that I can’t recall…

  55. 55.

    LT

    Coeur de Blanc or Heart of White. Elegant, catchy, not hard to pronounce, and consistent with the name of the winery and the name of the wine. How’s that? ;)

  56. 56.

    j henry

    One problem with this is the US has a law which states all wines made in the US must be named after the majority varietal used to make the wine. Only Europe can call wine by something else (region, town, province), eg, Champagne vs our Sparkling Wine. So, your white pinot noir must be called pinot noir something. And just as MikeJ said earlier, champagne is a white wine made from pinot noir.

    Stupid international law.

  60. 60.

    Tom Higgins

    j henry:
    I don’t know of any law that requires you to name the wine after the varietal. The only law around this is that the US requires 75% of that varietal to be in the bottle if it is being named that varietal.

    LT
    Coeur Blanc is currently being used by a white Pinot Noir made in the same fashion at Domaine Serene. We’ll shy away from any trademark infringement.

    Our wines, to this point, have been varietal names and we’re looking for something outside our box – something dynamic, creative and can express something wonderful. Imagine looking at this wine on a restaurant wine list and being compelled to try it just because of the name. By simply calling it “White Pinot Noir” we wouldn’t want it confused with “White Merlot” or “White Zinfandel” – it’s absolutely nothing like these.

    What’s in it for you?…. You get the first 6 bottles of this wine free (as long as you’re 21).

    Keep the names rolling in! (Also, a simple search on google for your name followed by the word “wine” will save us some time to sort through the entries.)

    Cheers,
    Tom Higgins
    Owner/Winemaker
    Heart & Hands Wine Company

  61. 61.

    southpaw

    Maybe you could call it Genèse 1:4.

    “Dieu vit que la lumière était bonne, et il sépara la lumière des ténèbres.”

    God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from darkness.

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