My Wine of The Month for May is Beaumont 'Jackals River' 2018.
It is light in colour, smelling of raspberries. It is also unusually light for Pinotage at 13.5% abv. (The 2021 vintage is 13% abv.)
One of the things that first excited me about Pinotage was that it was made in many different styles. This is a light manifestation, red berries - raspberries and redcurrants - but I found an underlying taste that I couldn't identify.
My Wine of The Month for April is Beyerskloof Kriekbult Pinotage 2020.
Taking its name from the farm the vineyard is planted on, it comes from their 27 year old bush vines. I had this with lunch at the winery in March and bought a bottle to have with dinner the following week. Then I went back to buy two more bottles to bring home, and I opened the first this month, shared with a fellow Pinotage fan.
It is exceptional. Lots of blackberry fruits, tannins discreetly in the background, it's easy to drink and so rewarding. My new favourite of all Beyerskloof's portfolio. And that's saying something!
The Pinotage Food and Wine Festival this year on 13 May 2023 is a celebration of the 2023 harvest. Tickets are now available from Quicket.co.za - https://qkt.io/QsV6Og
The festival will be held at Markötter Sports Grounds, in the heart of the Stellenbosch wine region. Festival goers can expect to sample a wide range of Pinotage wines from some of the most recognised South African wine estates. In addition to the wine tastings, there will be live entertainment, delicious food, and a private tasting with some well-known, award winning wine personalities.
"The Pinotage Festival is truly a celebration of South African wine and culture," says deputy chairman of the Pinotage Association, De Wet Viljoen. "It's a chance for people to discover the unique and exciting flavours of Pinotage wine, while enjoying the beautiful surroundings and vibrant atmosphere of the festival."
Wines will be poured by L'Avenir Wine Estate, Springfontein Wine Estate, Spijker & Bessie Wyne, Stellenbosch Hills, Amperbo, Windmeul Kelder, Middelvlei Wines, Clos Malverne, Beyerskloof Wines, Bon Courage Wine Estate, Marianne Wine Estate, De Waal Wines, Koelenhof Winery, Simonsig, DuToitskloof Cellar, Overhex, Painted Wolf and more.
Live performances by - Francois Haasbroek, David Derman, Johnny Camel and Die Broers.
Accommodation partner is Protea Hotel by Marriott Stellenbosch, contact them for the Pinotage Festival special rate, 021 880 9500or email grmanager@phstellenbosch.com
The Pinotage Food and Wine Festival is a collaboration between Pinotage Association and Klub1000.
For more information: Sonia Haasbroek shaasbroek@paulroos.co.za or Belinda Jacobs brand@pinotage.co.za
My Wine of the Month for February 2023 is KWV Cathedral Cellar Pinotage 2019.
It's a very drinkable clean bright fruity wine with a bit more seriousness about it than the basic KWV. It's savoury with berry fruits, and could be kept - but why when it's so good now?
Cathedral Cellar is the huge KWV cellar in Paarl lined with large 12,000 litre barrels with carved ends. At the end of the cellar are tinted windows. A visiting poet said the cellar was a cathedral of wine.
The new KWV doesn't seem to set a foot wrong, and I have enjoyed their basic Pinotage. This is about double that price, and about half that of the premium Mentors brand.
Bruce Jack tells how an overheard conversation about a red variety called Bobal inspired him to make prizewinning Pinotage
He was in the Spanish wine region of Utiel-Requena in Valencia home of Bobal.
He writes:
'Ed Adams (my partner in our Spanish project, La Báscula) had just ordered some lamb cutlets cooked over the open flame (the house speciality), when his ears pricked up at the word ‘Bobal’. A table of winemakers next to us were engaged in a passionate discussion and Ed translated what they were saying for me:
“Bobal is a cat,” sneered one. “It will only be friendly on its own terms.”
“It can be magnificent or your Achilles heel – there is no safe middle ground,” concurred another.
Then a much older, weather-etched man with a tweed cap spoke and everyone listened.
“Bobal is like our mountains. In ancient times, one had to master the mountains to get to the coast. But then came the railways, the flood-proof bridges and the tunnels. So now we go around and through the mountains. This has opened up the country and brought wealth from Valencia. No one uses the old mountain roads and in some places they are now lost to the forests.”
I wasn’t sure Ed was translating correctly. There didn’t seem to be a point to his soliloquy and I couldn’t decipher what the relevance to Bobal winemaking was. I noticed some of the younger winemakers looked at each other quizzically while the old man took a sip of wine and chewed on a polished almond.
Eventually, he said, “No one is forcing us to conquer the mountains anymore, so our relationship with them has changed and our knowledge of the ways of the mountain has been lost. But we still marvel at them and respect them and of course they are part of us. We must just be prepared to rediscover the mountains for the sake of the mountains. Instead of having to conquer them to get to the coast, we must rediscover the old roads and ways of the mountain only because they are special to us.”
I am not sure what effect this cryptic speech had on those winemakers and their personal struggles with Bobal, but for me a light suddenly came on. For the first time I saw Pinotage, not as a debilitating battle, but as an adventure – an opportunity to rediscovery my own South African viticultural identity. I decided to discard everything I had been told about Pinotage and just walk up into the forest and discover this majestic winemaking mountain at my own pace, and purely for the delight of doing so.
From making some of the most embarrassing examples of Pinotage, in a single vintage, I started making award-winning wines. What astounded me was the immediacy of the transformation. It wasn’t an army I had needed to meet Pinotage with, it was a flag of truce.'
And Flag of Truce is the name of Bruce's new single vineyard Pinotage. Its grapes come from from the same vineyard on the Silkbush farm in Breedekloof from which Bruce sourced grapes for Writers Block when he owned Flagstone Wines.
Read his article here
My Wine of the Month for December 2022 is L’Avenir Estate Single Block 02 Pinotage 2015.
It is a registered Single Vineyard Estate Wine of Origin Stellenbosch, and Block 02 is pictured in gold on the label on an image taken from a satellite photo. The block was planted by the then viticulturist and winemaker François Naudé in 1985 as bush vines, but subsequently changed to low trellising. This wine was made by Dirk Coetzee.
Although almost eight years old, it seems still youthful, full of power. But there's grace too. Tannins have melted to the far background allowing sweet fruit to take centre stage. It's a big wine, and much as I enjoyed it I was wondering what it'd be like with another couple of years. Ah well, that was my last bottle.
My Wine of The Month for November is Sutter Ridge 1996.
When I visited this winery in Amador County long ago it was growing 25 acres of Pinotage, the largest in the USA. I brought this bottle home but kept it too long.
But no, this 26-year-old wine was delicious. Showing the brownness of age, of course, but plenty of sweet fruit. No tannin, and surprisingly little sediment. A beautiful delicate wine.
The winery was pressurised by another winery with a similar name to change its name, but it now appears to have closed.
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Learn more about my new book telling all about Pinotage and read sample pages at
A Year in Paarl
A I Perold's
A Treatise
on Viticulture
A I Perold (1880-1941) was South Africa's first Professor of Viticulture and Oenology. He dedicated himself to improving the quality of grapes for wine, brandy and the table. He studied wine and brandy production in Europe, imported more than 60 varieties to the Cape and bred new ones. Perold said this book “is intended to serve both the student and the practical grape-grower. There are in it technical passages that will appeal more to the student, e.g. the chapters dealing with the biology of the vine, its external and internal morphology, the theory of grafting. My remarks on the practice of viticulture, such as those dealing with the propagation, manuring and pruning of the vine, the production of table grapes for export, will, it is hoped, assist the practical grape-grower as well as the student.” This is a newly typeset reprint, not a photocopy. Text on the 712 pages have been aligned to match the original pagination so any external references to pages in the Treatise will be valid in this edition
Available in paperback and hardback editions. 712 pages
with
A I Perold
Dr Perolds report on his Paarl experiments 1915 - 1916 reprinted with glossary, introduction and brief biography. Fascinating historical document on viticulture for wine and table grapes, wine and brandy making.
