Cricketers knocked for six by 36 year old Meerendal Pinotage

The Daily Telegraph / English cricket team third wine tasting was was hosted by Johann Rupert at his L'Ormarins Estate in Franschhoek.

After the formal tasting Graham Boynton reports that

Johann Rupert pulled out two very old wines – a 1982 Rustenberg cabernet sauvignon and a 1974 Meerendal pinotage – which we drank after the formal tasting. Both were lovely, complex aged wines but it was the Pinotage that provided the big surprise. Pinotage is South Africa's one indigenous grape varietal, a cross between cinsault and pinot noir, and has been described by critics as having no redeeming features.

Yet here was an aged Pinotage that was balanced, luscious and with none of the bitter aftertaste that characterises so many younger pinotages. The lesson: even a capricious style flourishes under the African sun if nature and nurture are applied in the correct balance.

Read the full Telegraph report here

Beyerskloof in Telegraph'sTop 10

Number 3 in Jonathan Ray's list of South Africa's Top 10 wines for the Daily Telegraph is

2008 Beyerskloof Pinotage, 14%vol, South Africa (£5.99 if you buy 3, otherwise £8.99; Wine Rack)

Pinotage, a cross between cinsault and pinot noir, is South Africa's USP, loved for its fruit by some, dismissed as tired and redolent of burnt rubber by others. In the hands of Beyerskloof's Beyers Truter, one of the grape's most vociferous supporters, it works a dream. Here, his entry-level version is ripe, juicy and full of spicy plum fruit, with no hint of rubber. Enjoy with slow roast belly of pork.

read full list here

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Pink Pinotage sweeps all before it

The Pink Pinotage bandwagon sweeps all before it.

In today's Daily Telegraph (UK) there's a page of wines selected for what their wine writer Jonathan Ray calls "the capricious season that we call an English summer."

He lists four pink wines, "two still and two sparkling - that deserve a special mention with summer in mind." And half of them are Pinotages -- Flagstone's 2006 Semaphore Rosé and Simonsig's Brut Rosé NV fizz. (The Telegraoh says NV, but in fact the wine is vintage 2005, tho' the year is not very clear)

Who'd have thunk it?