Grape Thinking » Pinotage

Warwick 2003 Three Cape Ladies

Ruarri — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:00:53 +0000

The Pinotage required to make this a Cape Blend offers spontaneous combustion of fruit profiles with undercurrents of sweet spice from the Merlot and a good gripping firmness from the Cab. Pinotage and Cab are the front-row of red fruit, delivering a patriotic and powerful mix of South African splendor. This wine is a super-trooper and drinks gloriously.

Stormhoek Pinotage Couture (Rose)

Ruarri — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:00:23 +0000

Stormhoek Pinotage Rose rocks the party with rock-candy colour intensity, bold cherry and strawberry aroma and a concentrated super juicy fruity palate. Drinking it over ice in a tumbler is a nice touch, and it certainly raises Rose’s game. This wine makes my front line.

When it comes to Pinotage, you should also check out Peter May‘s site at http://pinotage.org. He has written several articles for Grape Thinking, here and here, and we still have 4 more postings on the series. Thanks Peter!

KAAPZICHT STEYTLER PINOTAGE 2002

Ruarri — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:00:59 +0000

This rustic wine romps in the glass with stewed fruit, forest floor and complex herbaceous qualities, the palate is gamey and bloody, with sweet/ savoury duplicity that brings one back the glass to explore. It is a serious treat for the seasoned snooth, and a gem to give to friends with a flare for bold and virile wines.

Lord Neethling 2001 Pinotage

Ruarri — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 14:00:54 +0000

With a nose reminiscent of cafÃ©’ mocha, charred wood, coffee, cocoa and cinnamon is met on the palate with a full blooded robust structure that makes this a tough wine to tackle, and definitely something to set a good deal of time aside for. The wine finishes with warmth on the throat and is a more than satisfying.

Avontuur 2002 Pinotage

Ruarri — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:00:01 +0000

If I had to place this wine on the rugby field, I’d put it in as eighth man, as though it packs a tooth-staining punch of oak and has pushing power with 15% alcohol and blood stained colour concentration, on the nose one gets versatility and agility, in that its not another sluggish bomb that packs punch only through its alcohol. Quite contrarily, the Avontuur 2002 Pinotage has a fragrance of brandy butter, simultaneously spicy and creamily soft. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a wine for the weak at heart, and certainly not summer sipping. This is a rugby-players wine with body, punch, power and the ability to leave you feeling a bit dazed after a glass or three.

Diemersfontein 2005 Pinotage

Ruarri — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:00:04 +0000

Toasted chestnuts, fresh ground coffee, cocoa and stewed prunes make this a Pinotage extravaganza of jolly jammin’ complexity, breadth and depth of flavour. This is a wine to buy time and again and enjoy for its accessibility, versatility, affordability and general all round magnificence, an all time favourite of mine and a sure player on our side.

Beyerskloof 2005 Pinotage

Ruarri — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:00:02 +0000

Sour cherry, wild berry, oak, plums and prunes, all at an incredibly affordable price. A refreshing Pinotage, immediately drinkable and undeniably satisfying.

Kanonkop Pinotage 2003, Stellenbosch

Ruarri — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:00:19 +0000

Not only is this wine an internet sensation and a cult wine, but it actually lives up to its name, at the same time as being extremely affordable considering the quality delivered from uncorking to final sip. With an amethyst center spreading out to a a ruby edge, Kanonkop is worth breaking out the Riedl for, as its colour is exquisite and visually stimulating in itself. On the nose there’s a bit of nutty, banana/ berry/ burnt sugar action that has a chameleon like inconsistency, changing with each visit back to the glass making tasting notes a challenging task. A wine for the lover of the sensual, and making the wine a definite contender for captain of the South African wine side.

Pinotage Part 2 – Kanonkop Pioneers Pinotage

Ruarri — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:25:42 +0000

Part 2 – Kanonkop Pioneers Pinotage
by
Peter F May

Pinotage had been developed in South Africa in the 1920′s and the first experimental wines had been made by C T De Waal who played rugby football for the Western Province team. His team mates, P K Morkel and Paul Sauer, decided to plant Pinotage vines on their farms – Bellevue and Kanonkop and a few years later Bellevue and Kanonkop Pinotages were the Grand Champions at the Cape Wine Shows of 1959 and 1961. As can be imagined, a new wine beating all the classic varieties at one show was amazing, but then doing so again caused a sensation and encouraged many wine farmers to plant Pinotage.

But it turned out that the variety tests a winemaker’s skill to the ultimate. Bruce Jack of Flagstone Winery says ‘Pinotage is the unpredictable, dangerous ride of your life’s work as a winemaker. It can smell fear on a winemaker at 20 paces. But if wine pushes your button, making a good wine from a difficult grape is like pushing ten. It’s an awesome sense of achievement! I am biased, however. I have tasted and drunk wonderful, emotionally rallying small scale, hand-made Pinotage. For those moments of beauty, it’s more than worth the wild ride.’

Unfortunately many winemakers were not up to the challenge and poor, and badly made wines tarnished the early reputation of Pinotage, causing a vicious circle in which little attention was paid to winemaking and vines were over-cropped to produce vast quantities of poor quality wines to go into blends.

At Kanonkop another rugby player, Beyers Truter, had been appointed winemaker. He took a different approach by treating Pinotage with all the care and respect needed, and – almost unheard of at the time — aged it in small oak barrels. The resulting wines again stunned critics. Truter won the Robert Mondavi Trophy for his 1989 Kanonkop Pinotage and the title Winemaker of the Year at the 1991 International Wine and Spirit Competition in London.

But there was another obstacle to wide recognition for the variety. South Africa’s government policy of apartheid had resulted in political and economic isolation from the rest of the world. Although a few Pinotage vines had been exported to New Zealand in the 1960′s and were growing with some success there, no-one else outside Africa could grow Pinotage and the variety became completely associated with South Africa.

Peter F May is the founder of The Pinotage Club – www.pinotage.org – an international cyber-based fan club for wines made from the Pinotage variety. Peter was awarded Honorary Membership of the producers Pinotage Association in 2004 and was a judge at the annual Pinotage Top 10 Competition in 2004 and 2005. Peter is a wine writer, educator and author. His book ‘Marilyn Merlot and the Naked Grape – odd wines from around the worrld ‘ was published in summer 2006.

Pinotage Part 1 – The Pinotage Buzz

GT — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 07:28:22 +0000

Ruarri asked me to write some pieces about Pinotage for this site, and I’m going to look at this variety by focusing on the winery that is most closely linked with Pinotage – Kanonkop Estate.

Part 1 – The Pinotage Buzz
by
Peter F May

Kanonkop Estate’s 2004 Pinotage is causing an online buzz. Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV opened a bottle in his vidcast (Episode 218) on South African wines. He was so impressed that he featured four bottles of it in the following episode to experience the differences that opening times and decanting made.

He first tasted the bottle he’d opened 24 hours earlier which he used in the previous vidcast. Then he compared two Kanonkop 2004′s that he had opened 5 hours previously; one had been decanted while the other had been left in the bottle. The fourth was opened on camera and tasted immediately.

Gary said “I like this wine, beautiful red cabbage profile, oil & vinegar & olives. Bananas are jumping, (I Iove bananas), structured like Bordeaux, terroir driven, this is essential class Pinotage. Comes from granite soil, you’re getting some of this. It’s really polished, but young, need another three years. Now getting dark liquorice flavour, gets olive & smoky on finish. I highly recommend it, I’m giving it 91 points. If you like extremely well polished and intriguing wines, seek this bottle out.”

The word ‘estate’ has a legal meaning in South Africa; it tells us this wine was made from grapes grown only in vineyards owned by and surrounding the winery. That it was made, matured and bottled in the winery.

Kanonkop is a well respected winery on the road to Paarl, just north of Stellenbosch. From the road its vineyards stretching back to a clump of trees in which is the winery. Behind and to the sides of the winery are low hills covered in vines. At the entrance is a cannon. For the name Kanonkop means Cannon Hill and refers to guns placed on hills in olden times that were fired when ships were seen along the coast to alert farmers to load up their wagons with produce to take to the harbour. Sailing ships travelling down around the southern tip of Africa would stop at the harbour to take on fresh meat, fruit, vegetables and water. And wine. The reason the Cape was settled in the mid 1600s was to provision ships and wine was first made there in 1659 because it was known that wine prevented scurvy among sailors.

Kanonkop Estate was established in 1910 and now is considered one of the ‘first growths’ of South Africa. It makes only red wines, and just four of them. A flagship Cabernet dominated Bordeaux blend named ‘Paul Sauer’ after the second owner, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, a 100% Pinotage and a second label named Kadette which is a varying blend of Pinotage, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Up till 1973 Kanonkop, as with most other vineyards, sold its grape to co-operatives. Since first making its own wines 35 years ago there have been only four winemakers, owner Jannie Krige, Jan “Boland” Coetzee (now owner of Vriesenhof Winery), Beyers Truter (now owner of Beyerskloof) and since 2002 Abrie Beeslaw.

Peter F May is the founder of The Pinotage Club – www.pinotage.org – an international cyber-based fan club for wines made from the Pinotage variety. Peter was awarded Honorary Membership of the producers Pinotage Association in 2004 and was a judge at the annual Pinotage Top 10 Competition in 2004 and 2005. Peter is a wine writer, educator and author. His book ‘Marilyn Merlot and the Naked Grape – odd wines from around the world‘ was published in summer 2006.

Grape Thinking » Pinotage

Warwick 2003 Three Cape Ladies

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