It’s an excellent blending grape, where it can play a role similar to Grenache. That doesn’t make financial sense, in most cases. Declassified lots can make it into wineries’ daily drinker odds-and-ends blend or some creative one-off.
I’ve had some Pinot Noir and Gamay blends as Passetoutgrains but also from other parts of France that has been nice.
In Austria blending with Pinot Noir is quite common - usually with Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch. Those can be quite nice.
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Isn’t one of the reasons that pinot isn’t blended more (apart from the economic factors Wes mentions) is that it can be easily dominated by other grapes in a blend and be lost? That happens with Chianti, where sangiovese can be completely dominated by even relatively small portions (say, 10%) of cab or merlot.
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Glad to see the interest in the subject.
I agree with John Morris last post, Pinot is easily dominated by most other red grapes.
The obvious exception is Gamay, as in Passe-tout-Grains. Anybody drinking any Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire (the most French wine term ever)?
The blend I had in Narbonne was with Cinsault, another relative lightweight that doesn’t immediately overpower Pinot Noir. This is a niche interest for me, but moving forward I’ll try Pinot in blends with other delicate red varieties.
Dan Kravitz
This is a really stupid question but … am I correct that the dominance of say Syrah in a blend with PN comes from the skins, as much as the pulp? I’m wondering what would happen with no or minimal skin contact. Of course the first answer is probably why bother.
The result would be a white wine or a very pale rose.
A few years back I had a really excellent still white wine that was a blend of 50/50 Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It was made by Bodegas Roca in San Rafael, Mendoza Argentina. My previous company represented Roca for a few decades and they made a small quantity of this curiosity. IIRC it was aged 12 months in mostly older oak. It had no pink tinge, but plenty of body and some red fruit. It was Reserva quality, would have retailed for $35. If I could have gotten it on the shelf for ~$20, I would have tried to sell it.
Dan Kravitz
One of my favorite wines is the Julien Guillot 910 which is a field blend of Chardonnay, Gamay and Pinot Noir, including the old varieties Gamay Petit Grain and Pinot Fin.
I think Jay’s comment about blending with Algerian Syrah, was about the old burgundy blending tradition which added color and body, making the product more saleable. I’ve definitely had some old burgs that I suspected had a bit of Syrah in them.
The obsession with lighter Pinots is a relatively recent phenomenon.
It’s funny. The obsession with darker Nebbiolo is a relatively recent phenomenon too. Fortunately, it seems to have been a fad.
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I believe Flowers Perrenial is a pinot blend but am not sure of the components. Used to drink this frequently years ago.
I understand Blanc de Noir (there’s an excellent one made about 80 km from here at Exultet in the County. It was the Syrah (or Cab or whatever ) component I was curious about flavour wise, has it ever been done?
Like many geeks, one hears rumors of blending in Burgundy. However I more often hear that the culprit / savior is Carignan, not Syrah.
Dan Kravitz
Daumas Gassac used to use a small proportion of pinot in their rouge, 2-3%. Seemed silly on paper, but those wines were/are great.
Pinot blends well with Cristal aka Cristal Rosé.
I agree with John Morris that it’s pretty easily dominated by other grapes in a red blend. May be a component in a tasty wine, but won’t have much Pinot character and needs to be some relatively cheap Pinot for it to make sense (as Wes wrote).
As far as the old thing about CA Pinots having Syrah, I think that might have been a thing in the 1960s or 1970s, but Pinot Noir wasn’t particularly valued or good in CA back then, at least for the most part. There are some Pinots from the era that are still alive, but some of them don’t taste much like mature Pinot.
In general, it would need to be some pretty non-varietal Syrah to be successfully blended in to a higher end Pinot. Ken Zinns and I once had a Pinot where the winemaker had blended 1-2% Petite Sirah to “give it color”. Pretty much sucked as a Pinot. It probably would not have been a very distinguished Pinot in any case, but might have actually tasted like a Pinot Noir wine.
The California wineries where I worked used some Pinot that wasn’t going to super successful on its own in blends, but they were never labeled as Pinot and, to me, tasted more like the other grape(s). One of them was 50-50 Pinot Noir and Trousseau.
Pinot Noir/Pinot Gris blend well, but they are virtually the same grape.
-Al
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I’ve always assumed it was just a way to amplify the agenda against ripe modern style Pinot. That and claiming it has Mega Purple.
That is, among the kinds of pinot we would ever talk about on boards like this. I don’t have any opinion either way agout $8 Pinot at TJ’s or the grocery store.
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In the early to mid-80’s I did a tasting with Robert Parker and Jim Pedroncelli, mostly to do a vertical of their Cabernets (which were consistently good and ageworthy, if not riveting).
At the end, Jim Pedroncelli pulled out a mini-vertical of Pinot Noir. The first one, iirc about 10 years old, was black and tannic. He explained that the law was 51% and the wine was 51% Pinot Noir. The other 49% was Petite Sirah.
Dan Kravitz
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I have been happy with some PN/Gamay blended wines from Loire.
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Kind of like humans and chimps are virtually the same species?
@Jim_Anderson of PGC makes “virtually” 36 different Pinot Gris. 
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As others have said, pinot oftentimes gets ‘squashed’ by most other varieties it is blended with, so other than creating volume, I’m not sure why it is done in most cases. Kinda like Cinsault - unless you’re gonna blend similar ‘weight’ varieties with it, it looses its character.
Now if we’re talking a darker, heavily extracted pinot, that’s a different story . . .
Cheers