31 May 2021

WoTM - The Mentors Pinotage 2017

 My Wine of The Month for May is The Mentors 2017 Pinotage W.O. Coastal




Mentors is the top range in KWV's wine portfolio, and they never disappoint. This 2017 suggests on its back label to age for five to eight years, but it is drinking beautifully now after four years.


There's black fruits, damson come to mind with an intriguing underlying spiciness. It's a mouth filling, rich and satisfying wine. Must get more!





27 May 2021

Consumers Have Moved On

Interesting article in Forbes by Cathy Huyghe who says that many people in the wine business are old fogeys with elephantine negative memories on the subject of Pinotage.


Consumers, in the meantime, have moved on. Far, far on.


It’s a telling discrepancy. On one hand are the traditionalists and their elephantine memories, who cling to negative, decades-old impressions of Pinotage the way former athletes cling to romantic idealizations of their long-ago glory days in sports. Interestingly, this group seems populated more by people in the trade than by casual consumers who comprise the alternate side of the discrepancy, who are more curious and interested in current iterations of today’s wines now rather than the versions of how yesterday’s wines used to be.


Full article  - Old Fogeys Vs The Rest Of Us: Perspectives On Pinotage Wines From South Africa