My Wine of the Month for July is Perold Vineyard Pinotage 2013 (WO Stellenbosch).
This was the first vintage of wine from the special and unusual vineyard, a small (0.5 hectare) old riverbed plot scattered with large stones, named in honour of A I Perold.
It was planted in October 2008 with 966 vines in a fan shape (as
pictured on the label) to examine the effect of sunlight at different angles.
It’s in the
town of Stellenbosch on land owned by STIAS, the Stellenbosch Institute for
Advanced Study, who are doing the study. The wine -
1,000 bottles annually - is now made by the nearby Lanzerac winery but
this particular wine was made by Beyerskloof, as shown by the A310 number on the
label.
The wrap-around label
names not only the clone used (Pinotage PIN48 ‘medium growth and yield, very
fruity’), but also the rootstock US8/7UC32, information almost unknown on
labels.
Because
‘Perold’ as a wine name is trademarked by KWV, the wine is now sold by Lanzerac under the name
Aliquid Novi - certainly since 2015.
I had only one bottle of this wine which I bought in the Cape, and I blew it. I should have either kept it longer or decanted it. It is light in colour, and tasted light, thin even, with the taste of cloves. But as time passed it grew in the glass and the last pour was best, showing the majesty in this wine if I’d only decanted it. It was silky and had developed complex flavours. Truly delightful at the last glass.
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