Pinot Noir: Chile or California? Understanding the differences

When we think about Pinot Noir, we automatically think Burgundy, however, this variety is cultivated in many different wine regions of the world. We previously tackled the main differences between Chile and New Zealand, now it’s time to understand the differences between Chile and California.

While varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon benefit from places with great thermal variation, Pinot Noir prefers cool and stable climates. That’s why regions like Casablanca and San Antonio Valleys are perfect for growing the variety. The same applies to certain regions of New Zealand and the US, where Sonoma and Russian River stand out.
Pinot Noir is certainly a very particular variety and each producing region deliver a very unique wine. California and Chile share many characteristics, but their differences are what makes the exercise interesting.

Pinot Noir from California

For more than 50 years, California’s wineries have tried to find the formula for the perfect Pinot Noir, and despite this being a very difficult and complex variety they have reached some amazing results. Pinot Noir is a very “transparent” variety that portraits it terroirs very clearly.

For instance, regions that have a warmer climate, like Russian River – the wines tend to deliver black fruit instead of red berries, the wines are more ripe, and usually more concentrated and with higher alcohol levels.
On the other hand, those produced in cooler climate, like Sonoma, the wines tend to be lighter, with notes of red fruit, sometimes floral aromas, with higher acidity and in some cases, can reflect the minerality of the soil in their structure and light spicy notes.

Trying to generalize a bit, we can say that California’s Pinot Noir usually presents high acidity and medium body.

What about Chilean Pinot Noir?

We know Chilean wine have a great reputation worldwide, being Pinot Noir a great example. According to experts, “Chile’s natural barriers, including the Atacama Desert, the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean help maintain the vineyards’ health, sheltered from plagues and other diseases.”

Those natural barriers combined with cool climate valleys and limestone soils create the perfect condition to produce a unique Pinot Noir, with red fruit aromas, smooth tannins and perfect acidity.

Due to their climate conditions and soil composition, San Antonio and Casablanca valleys have been praised by their Pinot Noir quality and have allowed Chilean producers to deliver outstanding wines. That’s why in 1999, we created the “Pinot Noir Project“, with the objective of producing Chile’s best Pinot Noir.

As you can see, both Chile and California have the ideal conditions to produce the variety, and even though they can go from a light to a more medium bodied wine; from fresh red fruit to a ripe black fruit – due to the differences in terroir – both countries share Pinot Noir’s remarkable treats: balance, acidity and delicate tannins.