DNA and Chardonnay

Filed in archive Wine News on June 10, 2007

Vintners have a history of combining scientific technology with good old fashion grape growing, and one University of California at Davis professor has made the connection (literally) to science and wine making as she explores the DNA of Chardonnay. From DNA testing reveals true parentage of chardonnay:

Professor Meredith and her team revealed that 16 grapevines, including chardonnay came from pinot noir and gouais blanc. Some others are Gamay noir of beaujolais, melon of muscadet and aligote. Romans are said to have brought the gouais blanc grapevine to France some 2,000 years ago. The best guess would be from eastern Europe.

References to a pinot grape go back as far as the Roman writer Columella in the first century A.D. This suggests that pinot already might have been in the Burgundy region of France. At the start of chardonnay's popularity in the 1970s, many French white wines from Burgundy came into the United States labeled as pinot chardonnay. Most long-term French grape-growers understood that this vine was in essence a white version of pinot noir.