Is Good Pinotage Atypical?

Joe Roberts at 1 Wine Dude puts out a call to 'Stop hating on pinotage already'. His 'plea against the undeserved hate' asks readers 'what bargain-basement version of any variety doesn’t have its fair share of sh*tty-tasting bottlings?'.

He goes on to enjoy a 2008 Kanonkop Pinotage that overachieves because it

'deftly captures the entire BBQ picnic in a single bottle; toast, smoked meats, red fruits, bananas, leather purses & all. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a great introduction to high-end Pinotage and actually delivers quality and complexity levels a bit above its price point.'

Pinotage hater and anorak about town Jamie Goode has found one he likes! Scali Pinotage 2006

'Now this was superb: it is a Pinotage that doesn’t have Pinotage character, which is a good thing. I guess with a few year’s bottle age like this it is closest in flavour profile to a top Chateauneuf, with rich, warmly spicy flavours and focused cherry and berry fruits.'

Is it my imagination that when Pinotage detractors find one they like it is always because it is atypical? In my book it's the badly made ones which are atypical.

That was the second 'atypical' Pinotage he's tasted this year, last week he found Stellar Organics Running Duck No Added Sulphur Pinotage 2011 to be

'Fruity, bright and lively with nice cherry and berry notes, showing admirable purity. No heaviness, and really drinkable. 86/100'.

Meanwhile I lunched with friends at Neetlingshof Estate yesterday. Cellar Master DeWet Viljoen was also there there having a business lunch with potential foreign clients but he found time to put a glass of pale red wine on our table. It was light bodied and tasted like a fine old claret, yet had lively sweet fruit. What could it be? DeWet then revealed the bottle - a 1984 Neethlingshof Pinotage. My, how this variety can age. Atypical? I don't think so.

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Pinotage Wine Guide Launched

A spiffy new Guide to South African Pinotage was published on Friday by the producer’s Pinotage Association. The event took place in Wellington at Diemersfontein Winery, the home of the original coffee’n’chocolate style Pinotage.

The main part of the 156 page full colour pocket sized Guide is a listing of wineries producing Pinotage and Pinotage blends with descriptions of their wines and wine land maps to guide visitors.

The book also covers Pinotage history and food and wine matching with several Pinotage recipes including Pinotage ice cream and Beyerskloof’s signature Pinotage burger.

The subtitle 1995-2011 refers to the year the Association was formed till the most recent Top 10 Competition. The book lists the most successful wineries in the 15 years of the competition, which commenced in 1997.

The Top 10 producers, as classified by winning entries in the competition are, in alphabetical order:

Beyerskloof
DeWaal Wines
Kanonkop Estate
L’Avenir Vineyards
Rijk’s Private Cellar
Simonsig Estate
Spier
Stellenzicht Vineyards
Wellington Wines
Windmeul Cellar

And the winemakers with the most wins, in order of wins, are:

Beyers Truter, of Beyerskloof (and previously Kanonkop Estate)
Danie Steytler Snr, of Kaapzicht Estate
Daniel de Waal, of Super Single Vineyards (and previously DeWaal/Uiterwyk)
Francois Naudé, of Chateau Naudé (and previously L’Avenir Vineyards)
Guy Webber, of Stellenzicht Vineyards
Pierre Wahl, of Rijk’s Private Cellar

Association Chairman Beyers Truter said that better Pinotage was being made now than ever before, with sales of bottled Pinotage increasing 11% year on year in South Africa and annual exports from 5.5million to 9.5 million bottles in the five years to 2008.

Beyers Truter also announced a further five years of sponsorship by ABSA Bank worth ‘a few millions’, although he declined to name the exact figure.

Beyers said that when the Top 10 competition started Pinotage makers were dreaming in black and white. Since then much has been learned about growing and making good Pinotage and their dreams are in colour, and over the next five years they will be dreaming in 3D. The future is a “full bodied, balanced Pinotage with an accessible alcohol level.”

We finished outside together with the farm workers standing around bins of freshly gathered Pinotage grapes for the ceremony of blessing the harvest.


Photograph: Winemaker Francois Roode (left) with Diemersfontein owner David Sonnenberg blessing the harvest

Sultry, Heady & Tantalizingly Delicious!

Wines of the Month

Diemersfontein Pinotage 2009
Sultry, Heady & Tantalizingly Delicious!
(Wellington, South Africa.)/$18-$22

This hallmark expression of Pinotage is characterized by not-so-subtle hints of roasted coffee and dark chocolate…and it has earned so much praise and achieved so much popularity that a number of cognoscenti attribute this highly distinctive version of Pinotage from David Sonnenberg with having saved and lifted Pinotage from longstanding commercial obscurity. Folks, not all Pinotage will taste like this…or be this amazingly wonderful…so seek this one out and give it a whirl. Once you do…I’m certain of two things – 1) you too will be singing its praise -- and 2) it won’t be your last bottle

From Ricks Wine Skinny January newsletter - sign up for the monthly USA based newsletters by emailing Rick Davis ricksgrapeskinny (at) gmail.com

Pinotage Wins Best Israeli Wine

At the 6th Terravino Mediterranean International Wine and Spirit Challenge held in Israel last month, the Grand Champion Trophy for the Best Israeli Wine in Competition was won by Barkan Winery’s Superieur Pinotage 2007. That wine also won the Best Kosher Israeli Wine, and Barkan’s winemaker Irit Boxer-Shank won the Best Israeli Winemaker award.

Ms Boxer-Shank told the Jerusalem Report “I knew it was something special, I think it will help many wine drinkers move beyond Cabernet and Merlot.”

Barkan have been making Pinotage since 2001, and were the first to do so ,but this is only the second vintage accorded Barkan’s Superieur designation, reserved for wines of "exceptional quality wines which represent the best that the winery knows how to make".

Congrats to all.

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Christmas Pinotages

Christmas was an opportunity to open some special bottles.

Loma Prieta 2009 – Been keeping this for a few months (see http://www.pinotage.org/2011/08/paul-kemp-of-californias-loma-prieta.html ). This is a beautiful wine with soft dense fruit flavours, especially damsons. Just about perfect. I found this more immediately appealing than the 2008 and excellent drinking. Been garlanded in Platinum, Double Golds and Best of Classes in US wine competitions. I’m going to have to visit California to catch up on how they’re mastering this grape.

Kanonkop 2006 – intense compact brooding power, albeit restrained. Serious statement wine and beautiful with it. This was a Top 10 winner this year, tho’ I don’t know you can buy 2006 vintage. There’s a lot of sludgy sediment which leads me to think this wines evolving. I have a few more bottles so it’ll be interesting to try again, say next Christmas.

Stanford Hills Estate Jacksons 2007 – young fresh fruit flavours, red currants and blackberries from a newish estate in Walker Bay. Clean, lively and refreshing, tastes youthful, it’s a delightful drink. Deservedly 4 Platter stars.

Wishing you many fine Pinotages in 2012

Australia Joins the Pinotage Family

Say hello and welcome to Topper’s Mountain ‘Wild Ferment’ Pinotage Viognier 2009, the first varietal Pinotage grown and made in Australia.

Owner Mark Kirby told me:

Topper’s Mountain is in northern NSW in a region known as the New England Tablelands which was recently granted a wine GI “New England Australia”. Being so close to the equator in viticultural terms at 29degS, the cool climate we experience is a result of altitude – the vineyard is at 900m above sea level. Being this far north in eastern Australia means our climate has summer dominated rainfall – we receive about 500-600mm in the growing season. This makes thin skinned, tight bunched varieties such as Pinot noir & Sauvignon blanc a bit of a challenge for us. This was the genesis of my selection of Pinotage – it has looser bunches and much thicker & tougher skins than Pinot noir (leading to less split from rain & fewer berries being popped off the rachis), but retains a lot of Pinot noir’s elegance & complexity.

I originally planted ~ 200 vines (1 row in our “Fruit Salad” experimental block or 0.1Ha) in 2003. Up until 2008 vintage we were using the Pinotage in various red blends. In 2009 our winemaker Mike Hayes and I decided to have a look at the Pinotage as a standalone variety and the initial results have been very encouraging; 91 points from James Halliday, a silver and a high bronze medal. On the strength of this potential I grafted another row over to Pinotage two months ago.

In the winery Pinotage doesn’t get much special attention other than extra effort to extract colour as it is like Pinot noir & Nebbiolo in that it can produce pale wines if you’re not careful.

It is a co-fermented wild ferment with less than 15% Viognier. We do wild ferment for the first 4-6 baume of all our wines & for the Pinotage Viognier & straight Viognier, we let the wild ferment go all the way. We did the co-ferment because Mike is of the belief that this is done a bit in South Africa with high end Pinotage to fill out the mid palate.

Taste Pinotage Sunshine on 16 Dec

South African Wine News site wine.co.za is calling on every South African living abroad to share a drop of sunshine with a local on 16 December.

We would love every South African out there to open up a bottle of South African wine, and show your mates just how good our wine is - taste some sunshine, sunshine!

We have chosen the 16th December as it is a very special day for us South Africans, and it is right in the middle of the northern hemispheres winter... just when they need a little bit of sunshine in their lives - so spread a little bit of our sunshine, sunshine!

Get a great bottle of South African wine and sit down quietly and taste it with your mates.

Let them taste some of our sunshine. And of course, you don’t have to stop there...you could even open up a second bottle and then not so quietly share some of our sunshine.

And for those ex-pats out there in the land of OZ, or down the south of America, they might not need the sunshine, but you have to agree...
they do need to taste some good wine for a change, so get them to taste what makes us shine.

Then, please take some pictures and videos, and show us all what you did by posting them on the social networks (#tastewinesunshine) and at wine.co.za

And please tell us at wine.co.za so that we can organise this again next year.

So sunshine, what great South African wine are you going to taste this year !

And the answer is, obvious: PINOTAGE - Yea!!