According to Jancis Robinson, queen of the largest collection of grape analyses on the planet, Pinot has the most complex family tree of all the grapes thanks to its tryst with the nearly extinct medieval Gouais Blanc grape, resulting in a prolific clan of love children that include grapes like Gamay, Aligoté, and Chardonnay. Pinot Noir, Grigio, Gris, and Blanc—three of the grapes included in this club—have identical DNA, funny little mutations resulting in entirely different flavor profiles that remain, like Pinot Noir, vessels for telegraphing soil, weather, and the hands that shepherd them into bottle. The Pinot family wears its heart on its sleeve, displaying quite transparently how it thinks and feels, expressive in a way that cannot hide flaws or wrongdoings.

In this month’s club, we traverse the range of these emotional grapes with two to five entirely different styles, pink to copper, sparkling to still and back again. Should you want to supplement your journey, we have a rainbow of Pinots splashed about the shelves, with lots of stories to share. For better or worse, they cannot keep a secret. —Leslie Pariseau

Red Tail Ridge "Pétillant Naturel" Pinot Noir Rosé, Finger Lakes, New York 2025

One of my favorite things about Pinot Noir is how it can still surprise me. In one bottle it can be stoic, serious, and a bit moody. In another, like the Pet Nat Rosé from Red Tail Ridge, it can be a hopeless romantic. Not to say that romance can't still be taken seriously. Winemakers and growers Nancy Irelan, Michael Schnelle, and their team are dedicated to bringing out their ideal expression of the unique, beautiful, and serious terroir that is the Finger Lakes.

Known for its ancient glacial soils and lakes, this historic region tends to bring out the Burgundian notes of domestic Pinot. The 2025 growing season at Red Tail saw some extreme weather early on, forcing the team into defensive battle tactics. But with some vigilant vineyard maintenance the grapes came out intact and plentiful, and only two weeks later than usual. I guess part of romance can be the dramatic tension? Done in the methode ancestral style (i.e one fermentation, finished in the bottle) the Pinot Noir clusters were cold soaked and gently pressed, left for a brief initial fermentation with indigenous yeast in steel tanks. The unfiltered, unfined juice is then poured into the bottle where it continues to ferment as the cap is closed and the bubbles form, until you're ready to pour a glass.

Enjoying Pinot Noir in this wilder way can be just as rewarding as its aged version. This vintage is a soft, supple mousse of salted strawberry jam speckled with fresh clean soil and a zesty breeze of a finish. Perfect to ease the tension of an awkward first date, or a magical dinner for one in a cozy corner with your favorite book. —Beth Altenbernd (Red Tail Ridge #1 Fan)

Ashanta "Aida" Ramato, Sonoma County, California 2023

Filmmakers Chenoa Ashton-Lewis and Will Basanta were inspired by Chenoa’s family vineyard in Sonoma where they got their initial start in winemaking. Today, they work in conjunction with other winegrowers in the region who oversee the farming of hidden, undersung, and spiritually meaningful vineyards, whose vines are often older (relative to California age)—meaing 35 to 50 years. Not nothing for Pinot Gris.

This cuvée, called Aida, is 100% Pinot Gris, sourced from the Valley of the Moon. It’s produced in the “ramato” style. We tend to think of Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio as making white wines, but both can range in color from deep pink to nearly purple, creating a beautiful ramato (or “copper” in Italian) color, when the skins are left in contact with the juice. It’s a style Italians forged, which results in some delicious orange wine that’s especially prevalent in Friuli and the band of northern Italy where Pinot Grigio grows in concentration. Pinot Gris is a color mutation of Pinot Noir, and can manifest as tropical, spicy, full-bodied and lush.

I brought Aida out to a friend-dinner at Shang Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant that just opened on Magazine (they are waiting on their liquor license so BYOB is still allowed), and, let me tell you, this wine is a match for the soup dumpling sampler. It’s a generous Pinot Gris, all pear, green strawberry and kiwi, as one friend described it, rosy golden copper-pink, and lusciously textured, just as a ramato wine should be. —Allison Whittinghill

Flâneur Wines "La Belle Promenade" Pinot Meunier, Willamette Valley, Oregon 2024

In the family of Pinots, Pinot Meunier is one of the quieter of the bunch, perhaps the one who cleans up after a dinner party, happy to retreat while listening to the conversation around them. Though make no mistake, it would be missed if it disappeared. Who would do all the dishes after all?

A red mutation of Pinot Noir, the grape gets its name from the powdery, flour-dusted look of its leaves; meunier means “miller” in French. If you have had Champagne, you have probably tasted this variety; it is one of the three major Champagne grapes and makes up for about a third of the famous region's plantings. Cold-hardy and disease-resistant, Meunier is often seen as the workhorse of Champagne cuvées for its fruit and acidity, but in the right hands, it’s a chef's kiss. On our shelves are a couple Meunier heavy champagnes worth exploring, including François Bedel’s forté, spicy “Originelle.” I find these wines have a little more texture and nutty spice than Chardonnay or Pinot Noir dominant Champagnes. For this club's offering, however, we are exploring a still Pinot Meunier from Chehalem Mountains in Oregon.

Meet Flâneur. A producer that embodies the name—the leisurely wanderer exploring the world as an all-seeing, voyeuristic eye. Winemaker Anthony Sereni and grower Jaime Cantu tend to the winemaking and vineyards with that eye, deploying a playful curiosity to their approach across Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and, of course, this 2024 Pinot Meunier. Whole clusters of grapes are dropped into a tank to undergo semi-carbonic fermentation giving the wine body while keeping it lively and fresh. It’s mulberry-stained sidewalks, wild flowers, and allspice, and an excellent grilling companion. So tap your quiet friend and hand them a glass while you both do the dishes. —Cassandra Vachon

Domaine Mann "Fly Me to the Moon" Pinot Blanc, Alsace, France 2023

Pinot Blanc was an accident—a totally erratic genetic mutation of an otherwise normal Pinot Noir vine, resulting in a spray of white-skinned grapes. It’s imminently probable that the first few instances of this occurrence were disregarded without a second thought, clipped away, tossed among the rows, and forgotten. But sometime in the 14th century in Northeast Burgundy, a bold and curious vigneron took one of these pale shoots and replanted it. And now we have the reproducible specimen of Pinot Blanc.

Initially an undesired deviation, Pinot Blanc was among the first white grapes originally planted in Corton-Charlemagne (as legend would have it, ordered by Charlemagne), which is now arguably the most famous Grand Cru in the world for white grapes, located in the Côte de Beaune in Burgundy.

Now, for a left turn: Google Eguisheim.

When Pinot Blanc migrated northeast from Burgundy over the course of a century or so, it eventually found a spiritual home in Alsace. Honestly who wouldn’t be happy in this little mountain town. Did you Google it? Google it right now.

The Mann family has been tending vines in the slopes of Alsace since the 1600s. After World War II, they operated strictly as a grower, selling their grapes to a local co-op. They fully eschewed herbicides and chemicals in 1990, and in 1998 began, once again, producing their own wines. Small but mighty, the domaine takes care to vinify each parcel with the precise intent given to their most revered holdings.

Sebastien Mann took helm at the estate in 2009 and instilled the ethos of “feed the soils, not the vine,” and the result is undeniable and, ideally, in your glass currently. “Fly Me to the Moon” is predominantly Pinot Blanc with a smidge of Pinot Auxerrois that takes a quick turn on its lees lending some body and a hint of richness. White pear, honeysuckle, and silky lemon up front with buttered almond at the back to quench the palate. Perhaps an apt choice for an afternoon solar eclipse. —Drew Clowney

Maison Stephane Saillet "Pinot Noir" VdF Rouge, Alsace, France 2023

It’s understood that Burgundy is the spiritual home of Pinot Noir. Nowhere else does this noble grape get expressed with the nuance and exquisite attunement to terroir. Meet Stéphane Saillet, a Burgundy-born producer making Burgundy sourced wines in Champagne. How do we make sense of this? Saillet, a producer hunted down and imported by New York portfolio Jeffrey Alpert, is the first négociant in Champagne to source grapes from outside the region to make his own non-Champagne wines. (A négociant is a merchant that buys grapes or finished wines and vinifies and/or labels them under their own name.)

In the case of Saillet, he’s bringing grapes from storied vineyards in Alsace, Burgundy, Chablis, and more to create wines that are a little wilder than these classic regions might suggest. In some cases, as with his riesling (which he spells “reilsng” to skirt any labeling skirmish), he’s stretching the bounds of what is accepted in a hidebound place like Champagne. The only way to identify his secret grape caches is to examine his bottles closely: each label is illustrated with a topographical map, the parcel from which he sources highlighted in red (a task for a real wine geography savant).

This Pinot Noir, sourced from Burgundy, fermented with indigenous yeast, aged on the lees in oak for a year, is just left of what once might expect from a Burgundian cellar master (which Saillet once was). It’s translucent cranberry, zippy and expressive, as if it got some cues from its gamay cousin. It also has gravity, coming together with the depth that wood provides, an undercurrent of brambled preserves and subtle sarsaparilla spice. Do adventurous Pinot Noir drinkers exist? Most certainly they do, and if you are one, this bottle is for you. —LP