Blanc de Noir, or white from black, is typically a designation applied to Champagne that is made from the Pinot Noir grape. It’s a white wine made from black grapes. If that weren’t unusual enough, the grapes used to make this wine were affected with botrytus cinerea. Botrytus is a peculiar type of mold that grows on grapes and is responsible for some of the greatest dessert wines on the planet. The conditions must be just right, with foggy damp mornings and sunny afternoons, or else the mold grows too much and all the grapes rot. When the conditions are perfect, the mold eats the water inside the grapes without breaking the skin, thus concentrating the sugar in the juice. The resulting sweet wine is flavored with notes of honey and apricot, flavors added by the so-called “noble rot.” All of Christian’s wines are totally unique expressions of terroir, but this wine is even more unique and unusual because it has just a touch of botrytus and is therefore completely dry, not sweet. Christian made the first vintage of this wine in 1998, and only makes it when the right conditions are present.