WSJ's take on Pinotage

The Wall Street Journal let go of its well loved wine columnists John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter after 579 articles.

Their replacements are Jay McInerney and Lettie Teague who introduced themselves in a question and answer session as follows:

Jay: Well, is there a wine that you really don’t like?

Lettie: Pinotage, the red grape of South Africa (and fortunately nowhere else, at least that I know of). I loathe Pinotage. How a wine like that was actually deliberately created is one of the great vinous mysteries to me. It has all the charm of a burnt tire in a glass. Years ago when I served a Pinotage to a neophyte wine friend of mine, he actually suggested I not only dump out the wine but bury the bottle in my backyard. True story. In other words, I know I’m not alone in hating on Pinotage.

Of course it could be a ploy to encourage Wines of South Africa to bring them to the Cape to change Letties opinion. Hating Pinotage is no bar to such trips as certain English writers well know.