Pinot gris or
Grauburgunder is a white
wine grape variety of the species
Vitis vinifera. Thought to be a
mutant clone of the
Pinot noir variety, it normally has a grayish-blue fruit, accounting for its name (
gris meaning "gray" in French) but the grapes can have a brownish pink to black and even white appearance. The word
pinot, which comes from the word meaning "pine cone" in French, could have been given to it because the grapes grow in small pine cone-shaped clusters. The wines produced from this grape also vary in color from a deep golden yellow to copper and even a light shade of pink, and it is one of the more popular grapes for
orange wine. The clone of Pinot gris grown in
Italy is known as
Pinot grigio.