We've produced sparkling wine blends of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for several decades and it seemed to us that the Pinot portion contributes the most body and richness to the cuvées. We decided in 2019 to produce a dry white wine from Pinot Noir grapes—whole-berry pressed exactly as we do for sparkling wine. What's different is the ripeness of the fruit. Sparkling wine grapes are harvested at 18° to 20° Brix when the acidity is high; still wine grapes are harvested at 23° to 25° Brix for fuller flavor. To avoid picking up any red skin pigments we harvested the grapes cold and clusters were placed in the presses without destemming. The clusters were pressed slowly over a couple of hours but since our presses are small for whole-cluster pressing, we could only press a couple of tons of fruit per cycle. Each day when we were harvesting fruit for our Méthode à l'Ancienne Pinot Noir, we would whole-berry press a few bins each morning for this Blanc de Noir. Consequently, this wine is from fruit grown in four Pinot Noir vineyard sites—with four different clones—with 60% harvested from our higher elevation vineyards.

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