Meunier

Meunier (formally Pinot Meunier) accounts for roughly thirty-one percent of plantings, concentrated in the cooler, frost-prone Vallée de la Marne. Its later bud-break and earlier ripening make it the insurance grape of the AOC — reliable where Pinot Noir or Chardonnay would freeze or fail to ripen.

For decades it carried a reputation as a workhorse for non-vintage assemblage: round, fruity, supple, drinkable young. That reading is being rewritten. Krug puts it in Grande Cuvée by conviction; growers like Egly-Ouriet, Laherte Frères, Tarlant and José Michel have shown that old-vine, parcel-selected Meunier can age remarkably and stand on its own.