Meunier

Identity in VIVC

VIVC keeps the variety under number 9278 with the prime name Pinot Meunier, black berry skin and France as the country of origin.² The Champagne cahier des charges uses the shorter name "Meunier N" (N for noir).³ Among its 80 VIVC synonyms are Auvernat Meunier, Farineux, Dusty Miller Grape, Black Cluster, Blanche Feuille and Fruehe Blaue Muellerrebe.² Several of them, in French, English and German, refer to a miller or to flour, as does the word "meunier" itself.

A mutation, not a cross

VIVC gives no pair of parents for Meunier. Its pedigree reads "Pinot Noir mutation", and the entry sits under "pedigree confirmed by markers".² In other words, Meunier is treated as a form of Pinot Noir that arose within the variety, not as the offspring of two different vines. VIVC records Pinot Gris in the same way, as a marker-confirmed mutation of Pinot Noir.⁴ For Pinot Blanc the mutation is given only from breeder or bibliographic data.⁵

Of the three main Champagne grapes, Meunier is the only one without a pair of parents in VIVC: for Chardonnay the catalogue gives Heunisch Weiss × Pinot, and for Pinot Noir one parent is Savagnin Blanc.^6,7

In Champagne

Meunier is one of the principal varieties of the Champagne appellation.³ Comité Champagne gives the three main grapes these shares of the vineyard (no reference year stated):¹

On its role in the blend, the Comité writes that Meunier "adds roundness to Champagne wines" and that its wines "tend to age more quickly than wines made from the other two grape varieties".¹

Outside Champagne

The research for this page found no other appellation that lists Meunier as a regular variety. The June 2026 draft for Crémant du Jura names it as a red variety of interest for adaptation, subject to a convention and to a cap of 5% of a holding's plantings.⁸ That text is a draft, not the final rule.