Pinot Noir’s global vineyard share quadrupled to 3.1%, a study found

Pinot Noir, long tied to Burgundy and Champagne, is spreading quickly into vineyards far beyond its traditional cool-climate strongholds, according to a new academic study that traces a sharp global rise in plantings and finds that straightforward economics, not just terroir, is helping drive the expansion.

The paper, published online by Cambridge University Press in the Journal of Wine Economics, was written by Kym Anderson of the University of Adelaide and Australian National University and German Puga of the University of Western Australia. Using updated global vineyard data and regional production data from Australia, California and Oregon, the authors found that Pinot Noir’s share of the world’s winegrape bearing area quadrupled between 1990 and 2023, rising from 0.78% to 3.1%.

That increase lifted Pinot Noir from the world’s 27th most planted winegrape in 1990 to 10th place from 2010 onward. In area terms, global plantings rose from about 44,000 hectares in 1990 to 132,000 hectares in 2023. The authors noted that the variety’s standing in value terms could be even higher because Pinot Noir usually sells at above-average prices even though its yields are often lower than those of other grapes.

The researchers say demand has been pushed by two markets at once: sparkling wines, where Pinot Noir is widely blended with Chardonnay, and premium still wines, where it is often bottled on its own. They cite Wine-Searcher data showing that consumer searches for Pinot Noir rose from 10.5% of all searches in 2016 to 15.5% in 2024, making it second only to Bordeaux blends. Over the same period, the share of seller offers for Pinot Noir rose from 9.5% to 11.5%, suggesting demand has been rising faster than supply.

France still has the largest area planted to Pinot Noir, but its dominance has weakened as other countries have expanded. The study says France accounted for more than 40% of global Pinot Noir acreage through much of the 20th century, yet its share has fallen by about one-quarter this century even as its own area has continued to grow. By 2023, the United States had a Pinot Noir area equal to almost two-thirds of France’s. Italy had nearly caught Germany, New Zealand had nearly matched Australia, and Chile had moved slightly ahead of Switzerland.

The United States posted the biggest increase in absolute area from 2000 to 2023, while New Zealand recorded a nearly comparable rise in relative terms. Both countries expanded their Pinot Noir acreage by more than four times over that period, a pace the study says was roughly seven times the increase seen in the rest of the world.

The paper also looked at how concentrated some countries and regions have become in Pinot Noir. Switzerland stood out most at the national level, with a Pinot Noir intensity nearly nine times the world average. New Zealand, Belgium, the United States and Germany were next, each at around four times the global average. France’s concentration, by contrast, was much lower at 1.8 times the world average.

At the regional level, some places now devote a large share of their vineyards to the grape. In 2023, Pinot Noir accounted for 81% of bearing area in Central Otago in New Zealand and 71% in Oregon’s North Willamette Valley. Other regions with high shares included Neuchâtel in Switzerland at 55%, Wairarapa in New Zealand at 48%, Australia’s Mornington Peninsula at 55%, Tasmania at 47% and Yarra Valley at 40%. In France, Bourgogne had 32% of its vineyard area in Pinot Noir and Champagne had 38%.

The paper argues that the global spread cannot be explained by prestige alone. Pinot Noir is generally considered a grape best suited to cooler growing conditions, and the study repeats the conventional view that top-quality Pinot Noir tends to come from cool regions that often have lower yields and higher costs. But the data also show that warmer regions are planting the grape because it can still be profitable there, even if quality is lower and grape prices are well below those in cooler districts.

Australia provides one of the clearest examples. The authors compared five major Pinot Noir regions, from cool Tasmania to the much hotter Riverland, and found an inverse relationship between grape prices and yields. Tasmania, with an average growing season temperature of 14.4°C, produced Pinot Noir at an average yield of 5.8 tonnes per hectare and an average price of $2,805 per tonne. Riverland, with a much warmer average growing season temperature of 21.0°C and access to irrigation, averaged 28.8 tonnes per hectare but only $516 per tonne.

Even so, Riverland’s very high yields made Pinot Noir lucrative on a per-hectare basis. The study found that in Australia’s main Pinot Noir regions, prices for the grape were above the average for other varieties grown in each region. The premium reached as much as 16% in the cool regions and 22% in Riverland. Gross revenue per hectare was higher than for other varieties in every major region except Mornington Peninsula, where Pinot Noir earned about 15% less. In Riverland, gross revenue per hectare was 56% above the average for other grapes.

The authors say that pattern helps explain why growers in hot inland regions plant a grape more closely associated with cooler terroir. Lower prices do not necessarily rule out planting if yields are high enough to offset them. In Australia, the study found a negative correlation between Pinot Noir price and both yield and growing season temperature over 2001 to 2023, and a positive correlation between temperature and yield.

Oregon showed a more traditional cool-climate pattern, but the economics still mattered. Across the state, Pinot Noir earned about 10% more gross revenue per hectare than other varieties this century. In North Willamette Valley, which holds more than 70% of Oregon’s Pinot Noir area, the grape’s average price over 2014 to 2023 was 15% higher than in the rest of Oregon, and average yields were slightly higher as well, at 6.5 tonnes per hectare compared with 6.4 tonnes. That translated into a 15% higher gross return per hectare than other grapes in North Willamette Valley. In the rest of Oregon, Pinot Noir did not produce a higher gross return than rival varieties.

California offered another mixed picture. In cooler coastal counties such as Sonoma, Santa Barbara, Monterey and Mendocino, Pinot Noir posted strong gross revenues per hectare, generally above the average for other grapes in those regions. Sonoma averaged $23,841 per hectare for Pinot Noir, compared with $19,974 for all varieties. Santa Barbara and Monterey also showed large advantages.

But in Napa, where Cabernet Sauvignon dominates and commands high prices, Pinot Noir earned far less per hectare than the regional average. The study says Pinot Noir’s gross revenue there was only 60% of the average for all winegrape varieties, suggesting that some Napa plantings may reflect personal or stylistic preferences rather than strict financial logic.

The paper also points to two hot inland California districts in the San Joaquin Valley, near Sacramento and Merced, where Pinot Noir appears to generate gross revenue per hectare more than 60% above the average for other varieties. The authors caution that the planted area figures for those districts may be understated because the data imply yields above 30 tonnes per hectare. Even if yields were adjusted down to 20 tonnes per hectare, they wrote, Pinot Noir would still appear capable of matching the returns from the average grape in those irrigated districts.

The authors say climate change may widen the grape’s map further. As temperatures rise, regions that were once too cool for quality winegrapes may become suitable for Pinot Noir, while some current Pinot Noir areas may struggle to maintain traditional styles. That could encourage new plantings in emerging cool-climate regions even as warm areas continue growing the grape for volume and value.

The wide gap in grape prices across regions may also shape the consumer market. The study says average Pinot Noir grape prices over the past two decades ranged from less than $500 per tonne to more than $3,300 per tonne in the regions reviewed. If retail wine prices reflect those differences, the authors say, that spread could give younger and less-affluent consumers access to Pinot Noir earlier than if the market were supplied only by elite cool-climate regions.

The researchers noted that comparable economic data were not available for most producing countries outside Australia and the United States, though they did point to Argentina as a case to watch. Pinot Noir still accounts for less than 1% of Argentina’s bearing area, but that share has doubled this century, and the study says Pinot Noir grape prices there have averaged 60% above those for other varieties, with gross revenue per hectare about 90% higher.