Few grapes convey a wine’s sense of place as clearly as Pinot Noir. Taste two cuvées made from adjacent parcels in Volnay or Nuits-Saint-Georges and you’ll be blown away by the subtle differences and Pinot Noir’s ability to communicate them! But Burgundy is just one of many regions throughout France and Italy capable of producing worthy cuvées of pure Pinot Noir. In Savoie, Tuscany, the Loire, and Friuli, you will also find captivating expressions of this grape, whose wide range of textures, concentrations, and flavor profiles will expand—and enhance—your notion of what Pinot Noir can taste like.
     There is no better place to start than with Edi Kante’s dry, chiseled, and racy sparkling rosé made from grapes grown 800 feet above the Gulf of Trieste and vinified in the Champagne method. With its notes of tangerine and tart cherries, this is a perfect palate opener and summery way to begin an evening. Or, for another beautiful apéritif, open Roger Neveu’s succulent rosé from Sancerre, where Pinot Noir has been grown for centuries. 
     Moving to reds, try Quenard’s Chignin from the Alps, an ethereal rouge with fragrant notes of cherries and raspberries and ideal for your next picnic. Continuing on the lighter end of the spectrum, there’s Domaine de Reuilly’s zesty and fruit-driven eastern Loire rouge, a match made in heaven for grilled spatchcock chicken or sausages. Travel to Burgundy and open Gachot-Monot’s Côte de Nuits-Villages, which embodies the relatively muscular and full-flavored Pinot common in the Côte de Nuits. And finish your tour of this grape variety with some Tuscan fireworks. Federico Staderini’s cuvée from high in the foothills of the Apennine mountains delivers what might be the Pinot Noir revelation of the year, with its Volnay-like elegance and beautiful frutti di bosco notes. Federico achieves the improbable here: fresh, complex, and age-worthy Pinot from Tuscany.