WoTM - Warwick The First Lady Pinotage 2024

 My Wine of The Month for July is Warwick 'The First Lady' Pinotage 2024 (Western Cape).

It is a pale coloured, light fresh and fruity wine, more in the Beaujolais style of Pinotage. Gluggably drinkable and a perfectly nice wine, but I wouldn't be able to identify it as Pinotage if tasted blind.

WoTM - Beeslaar Pinotage 2019

My Wine of The Month for June is Beeslaar Pinotage 2019 (Stellenbosch)

Rich complex mulberry fruit flavours wrapped around a bright red ruby core of exotic spices. Rewarding on so many levels.

This is a personal venture of Abrie Beeslaar, when he made this his day job was as cellar-master at Kanonkop Estate. He’s now devoted full time to his own wines, tending the single Pinotage vineyard vines and making the wine, and has also expanded his portfolio. 

https://www.beeslaar.co.za/

WoTM - Beyerskloof Synergy 2020

 

My Wine of The Month for May is Beyerskloof Synergy Cape Blend 2020 (Stellenbosch)  a glorious blend of Pinotage, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz, Cinsaut and Pinot Noir. Proportions are not given on the label or on Beyerskloof's website for this vintage but based on other vintages it's likely to be little over a third Pinotage, with  Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot taking it up to about 90% of the blend and the others making up the remaining 10%.

It's a beautiful seamless blend, smooth, classy and very drinkable.

WoTM - Ashbourne 2004

 

My Wine of the Month for April is Ashbourne 2004 (Walker Bay) of which just fifteen barrels were produced. This was Ashbourne’s second vintage (first was 2001, there was no 02 or 03) and when I’d had it some 15 or19 years ago I thought it needed aging, put it in my Eurocave and, I have to admit, forgot about it. Time raced by and I suddenly realised it was now 22 years old. Where has the time gone?

Big heavy statement bottle with deep punt. Neck was too thick for my capsule cutter to fit. Corkscrew went in easily, telling me the cork was spongy. Gentle extraction was too easy, telling me cork had broken, I had got half the cork out. Fiddling with Butlers Friend extractor and Waiters Friend corkscrew got most of the rest out in the form of crumbs, but the lowest part fell into the wine, and though decanted through a fine sieve which got the bits of cork there was still fine cork dust floating on the wine. The bottle was coated in sediment and there were some large chunks trapped at the bottom between the bottle side and deep punt.

The wine was brown and clear. Fruit had mostly gone, but acidity and structure remained. I was ready to open another bottle for Joan but it grew on her and we drank it with pleasure and finished it during the meal.

But I wish I’d opened it 10 years earlier.

I got it in 2007 from the then winery, Hamilton Russell Vineyards. At that time Ashbourne was the most expensive Cape wine. There is no back label and no variety is shown, but it is 100% Pinotage. 

Asbourne is a project by Anthony Hamilton Russell who firmly believes in Pinotage and  it doesn't name a grape variety because Anthony wants people to judge the wine on its merits.

WoTM - Beeslaar 2018

My Wine of the Month for March is Beeslaar 2018 Pinotage is from a single Stellenbosch vineyard. Sixty-two barrels were produced, a large increase on the 16 barrels of the maiden vintage, just four years  in 2012.

I found a box of assorted bottles that had been missed when I had to move my wines to a new place, so this wine  was shown as 'missing, presumed drunk' on Cellar Tracker. 

I'd have probably opened it earlier so was delighted with this unexpected mature wine. And it was delightful, slight browning but full of luscious sweet fruit, no rough edges. Smooth, serious and a real credit to Abrie Beeslaar.