Auxerrois

Identity

Auxerrois is a grape people often drink without knowing it, because it is sold under another's name.

In Alsace the "Pinot blanc" usage designation — or "Pinot", or "Klevner" — covers two distinct varieties: Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois. A bottle labelled Pinot Blanc may be one, the other, or both blended. Nothing on the label will say.

And the name itself is a third trap: Auxerrois has nothing to do with Auxerre, nor with the Cot that the South-West sometimes calls "auxerrois".

A parentage that says a lot

The VIVC gives its pedigree, marker-confirmed: Heunisch Weiss × Pinot.

That is exactly the parental pair of Chardonnay, Gamay and Melon de Bourgogne. Four grapes of incomparable uses, colours and reputations, born of the same crossing — a prestigious Pinot and a Gouais Blanc that nineteenth-century ampelographers despised.

It is one of the clearest lessons of modern ampelography: parentage predicts neither taste nor rank. Auxerrois is the quietest member of that family, and no less legitimate than Chardonnay.

In the vineyard

It buds late, which puts it clear of spring frost, and ripens early. That combination is comfortable: a short season, protected at both ends.

Its vigour is medium. Pl@ntGrape places it on the marl and clay-limestone soils of Alsace.

In the glass

Here the distinction from Pinot Blanc becomes useful, and the source draws it clearly: Auxerrois "ripens earlier and gives rounder, less acidic wines than Pinot Blanc".

Its acidity is low. The two descriptors on this entry, overripe apple and almond, are readings of that round, ripe register, not quotations.

Hence the logic of blending them under one designation: Pinot Blanc brings the tension, Auxerrois the flesh. Together they make a wine neither would make alone — which is a good reason to sell them under one name, even if it deprives the drinker of the information.

Where it is named

In Alsace, a principal variety, under the usage designation it shares with Pinot Blanc.

It is also grown in Luxembourg and on the German Mosel, where it carries its own name and is sold for itself — but neither region has a node in this corpus and no source about them was opened for this entry.

What it gets confused with

Pinot Blanc, obviously, and the confusion is written into the regulatory text. Remember: Auxerrois is the rounder, less acidic, earlier-ripening of the two.

Cot, which the South-West locally calls "auxerrois" — a red with no connection to this Alsatian white. Pure homonymy, like the Charentais "Saint-Émilion" that means Ugni Blanc.