Kanonkop Pinotage 2010

I went to Kanonkop Estate as soon as I arrived in the Cape in January excited to taste their 2010 Pinotage, as I had tasted the 2009 in January the previous year. It seems to take six months for the wine to make it to England so I wanted the heads up. But the 2010 was not yet released.

The day before I left the Cape to fly home, owner Johann Krige kindly offered to open a bottle of the 2010. “I haven’t tasted it myself for some time,” he said.

Standing in the tasting room I was able to compare the just opened 2010 with the 2009 on the counter.

The 2010 is much in the style of 2009, but didn’t have the knockout appeal that the 2009 had at the same stage last year. 2010 was bright red and a bit more tannic, a bit leaner and not as soft rich and rounded as 2009 about of which I said “This is going to be a stunner.” It has potential and I’ll be buying some when it finally appears in my local wine shop, but if you have the chance, get some 2009 before they sell out.

Kanonkop didn’t release a 2009 vintage Black Label because the outstanding quality of the entire production meant there wasn’t a barrel that was superior enough to warrant a black label bottling, but there will be a 2010 Black Label.

The 2010 vintage was small following wind damage to vines in 2009 and this carried through to the 2011 vintage but production is back to normal levels with the 2012 vintage which was just about to happen.





Open top fermentation tanks at Kanonkop. Cleaned waiting for the arrival of the imminent 2012 vintage. The metal radiators in them carry cold water to conntrol fermentation temperatures.


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Is Good Pinotage Atypical?

Joe Roberts at 1 Wine Dude puts out a call to 'Stop hating on pinotage already'. His 'plea against the undeserved hate' asks readers 'what bargain-basement version of any variety doesn’t have its fair share of sh*tty-tasting bottlings?'.

He goes on to enjoy a 2008 Kanonkop Pinotage that overachieves because it

'deftly captures the entire BBQ picnic in a single bottle; toast, smoked meats, red fruits, bananas, leather purses & all. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a great introduction to high-end Pinotage and actually delivers quality and complexity levels a bit above its price point.'

Pinotage hater and anorak about town Jamie Goode has found one he likes! Scali Pinotage 2006

'Now this was superb: it is a Pinotage that doesn’t have Pinotage character, which is a good thing. I guess with a few year’s bottle age like this it is closest in flavour profile to a top Chateauneuf, with rich, warmly spicy flavours and focused cherry and berry fruits.'

Is it my imagination that when Pinotage detractors find one they like it is always because it is atypical? In my book it's the badly made ones which are atypical.

That was the second 'atypical' Pinotage he's tasted this year, last week he found Stellar Organics Running Duck No Added Sulphur Pinotage 2011 to be

'Fruity, bright and lively with nice cherry and berry notes, showing admirable purity. No heaviness, and really drinkable. 86/100'.

Meanwhile I lunched with friends at Neetlingshof Estate yesterday. Cellar Master DeWet Viljoen was also there there having a business lunch with potential foreign clients but he found time to put a glass of pale red wine on our table. It was light bodied and tasted like a fine old claret, yet had lively sweet fruit. What could it be? DeWet then revealed the bottle - a 1984 Neethlingshof Pinotage. My, how this variety can age. Atypical? I don't think so.

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Christmas Pinotages

Christmas was an opportunity to open some special bottles.

Loma Prieta 2009 – Been keeping this for a few months (see http://www.pinotage.org/2011/08/paul-kemp-of-californias-loma-prieta.html ). This is a beautiful wine with soft dense fruit flavours, especially damsons. Just about perfect. I found this more immediately appealing than the 2008 and excellent drinking. Been garlanded in Platinum, Double Golds and Best of Classes in US wine competitions. I’m going to have to visit California to catch up on how they’re mastering this grape.

Kanonkop 2006 – intense compact brooding power, albeit restrained. Serious statement wine and beautiful with it. This was a Top 10 winner this year, tho’ I don’t know you can buy 2006 vintage. There’s a lot of sludgy sediment which leads me to think this wines evolving. I have a few more bottles so it’ll be interesting to try again, say next Christmas.

Stanford Hills Estate Jacksons 2007 – young fresh fruit flavours, red currants and blackberries from a newish estate in Walker Bay. Clean, lively and refreshing, tastes youthful, it’s a delightful drink. Deservedly 4 Platter stars.

Wishing you many fine Pinotages in 2012

Kanokop Kadette is 'Beautifully structured'

I think Kanonkop's Kadette 2009 Cape Blend is the best vintage they have ever made, and I have bought cases of it for my wine tasting and home consumption. I first tasted it at the winery in January and said very impressive ... this vintage is a step up, being much more serious. There’s less upfront obvious fruit and a classic linearity.

In today's Telegraph Victoria Moore picks it as one of her top summer wines.

Kanonkop Kadette 2009

There’s no mistaking the origin of this bold red: it’s a big, smoky South African blend of pinotage, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc, aged in old French oak. Beautifully structured, with notes of roasted coffee beans and leather. It would be brilliant with blackened barbecue meat – spare ribs and steaks.

'Beautifully structured' - yes, spot on!



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Kanonkop 2009 - a bud ready to flower

Friday afternoon an hour before closing and Kanonkop’s normally sedate tasting room is busy. All seating is occupied and groups of people are standing swirling glasses, discussing wine and ticking order sheets. Counter staff are hard pushed to fill tasting glasses, answer questions and take orders on a till that is playing up.
“It has been like this all day,” says Anita Heyns who has run Kanonkop’s tasting room for as long as I can remember. She is trying to find the wooden case for a Methuselah (5 litre) bottle of Pinotage that has just been snapped up.

I wait for the purchases to be made and collected and the room starts to empty. Winemaker Abrie Beeslaar has brought to work his new baby daughter to show his colleagues and while they cuddle her he comes over for a chat and pours me a taste of Kadette 2010 Pinotage Rose which I’d tasted a tank sample of at the London Wine Fair in May. With some bottle time this dark pink wine was drinking well. “It had minimal skin contact,” said Abrie, “less than two hours. Just the time it took to fill the press — it has 55% free run juice. As soon as it was full we pressed it off the skins. Pinotage has this tremendous colour.” The wine is made dry; there is just 2 g/L residual sugar but the 14% abv “gives an impression of sweetness,” according to Abrie.

The red Kadette 2009 is very impressive. Made from a blend of 46% Pinotage, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot and 6% Cabernet Franc this vintage is a step up, being much more serious. There’s less upfront obvious fruit and a classic linearity. “We make it the same as the other wines,” Abrie told me. “The difference is that we use the young vines and older barrels.” 60,000 cases were produced and the UK Sainsbury supermarkets will be listing it.

To my surprise the tasting counter had open bottles of 2000 Pinotage. Abrie told me that for the past decade Kanonkop had been holding back supplies with the intention of being able to offer ten year old bottles. “Few people have the chance to taste aged Pinotage,” says Abrie, “and yet it is a variety with great aging potential so we wanted to be able to promote Pinotage by releasing some ten years old. Next year we will have the 2001 vintage available alongside the 2010 and so on.”

Kanonkop Estate Pinotage 2000 vintage was perhaps not an ideal example of the variety’s aging potential as the wine was pale, light bodied and had lost its primary fruit. All the same it offered rewards for aficionados of aged wine, with a delicate red berry flavours and a long aftertaste . “I think it is now showing its Pinot Noir heritage,” said Abrie. “2000 and 2002 were our toughest vintages. In 2000 we had bush fires and when the wine was young you could taste the smoke.”

Kanonkop had been hosting some trade tasting events elsewhere in the winery that Friday and when I mentioned that 1999 was my all time favourite vintage an opened leftover bottle was found.

Kanonkop Estate Pinotage 1999: In contrast to the 2000 this looked youthful with a dense deep black-red colour with a red rim and a soft warm sweet nose. I’d last tasted it in 2008 with Beyers Truter when my notes read “concentrated dense fruit, great complexity and it is just so drinkable” which is just as true now. Lovely wine, how I wish I had some.

I had come hoping that the 2009 Pinotage was released, and it was. Based on experience it won’t be available in the UK until next year: the 2008 had just appeared on the Wine Society Christmas list and I have a case at home. “It needs another year in bottle,” advises Abrie.

Kanonkop Estate Pinotage 2009: Dense impenetrable black, big and soft approachable tannins with fruit appearing in the mid-palate, a refreshing food friendly acidity and an after taste that just lingers. This is going to be a stunner. Abrie says that they used more fruit than usual from the older vineyards and that gives subtlety to the flavour and the long aftertaste.

I bought some bottles and opened one Saturday night with a Spur steak fillet and enjoyed it immensely even though too young. Spur doesn’t run to decanting, and the wine is young, but it is like a bud that will open and flower, and I reckon if (like me) you can’t wait then try opening it a few hours before drinking or decant it because by the end of my meal the wine in my glass was starting to open up.

The 2009 Pinotage is 185 Rand a bottle at the winery and the 2000 is a little more at 210 Rand. The Kadette Pinotage Rose is 52 Rand and Kadette Red is 65 Rand.
Another reason to visit Kanonkop, should you need an excuse, is that signed copies of my book Pinotage: Behind the Legends of South Africa's Own Wine are on sale in the tasting room.

Working Kanonkop's 2010 Vintage

Riaan Smit has written ( for winegoggle.co.za) a most interesting article about working the 2010 Kanonkop vintage.

He says

"Abrie [Beeslaar -- winemaker] described the vintage as “difficult” because of patches of uneven ripeness in the grapes, but also expressed satisfaction with “what we have in our tanks”. He reckons the 2010 Kanonkop wines will most likely not have big tannic structures and this will allow the expression of fruit in the wine to be more upfront.

The Pinotage yield at Kanonkop was down by more than half. A Black South Easter in October last year, during the crucial flowering stage, blew away more than half the normal crop. But a recent tank tasting of 10 Pinotages revealed some promising wine. It was a blind tasting for me – I could not connect block numbers on the samples to the age of the vines in the various blocks – and the wine from the 1953 block stood out prominently. This and some other Pinotage are undergoing malolactic fermentation in new French oak barrels."

Riaan's article shows the hard work involved when youwant tomake world class wine. Please read the entire item at winegoggle.co.za


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Pinotage Party - Beyerskloof 2008 - Kanonkop 2006

Encouraged by Dezel's Pinotage Party I opened a Kanonkop 2006 and Beyerskloof 2008


Beyerskloof Pinotage 2008 with its white label is the standard bottling from Pinotage king Beyers Truter's winery. The 2008 example is just delicious with bags of ripe blackberry and strawberry fruit and soft tannins on the finish. This one is lovely to drink on its own and it makes a cracking match with a takeaway from the Indian restaurant. I love this wine for its sheer drinkability. It is classic Pinotage.

Beyerskloof
Pinotage 2008
WO Stellenbosch
abv 14%



Kanonkop Estate is probably the most famous Pinotage producer internationally. From the time they started bottling their own wines more than forty years ago they have specialised in only a few wines and varieties of which Pinotage is one. They were among the first to plant the variety and now have one of the oldest Pinotage vineyards planted with sixty-year old gnarled stubby bush vines on a low clay hill.

Winemaker Abrie Beeslaar (pictured right) is only Kanonkop’s third winemaker and he smoothly took the baton from Beyers Truter and ran with it, winning the IWSC International Winemaker of the Year award in 2008

2006 was a good vintage. I first tasted this at the winery on release in March 2007 and I was delighted with it. In June 2008 I said it was “showing all the signs of being another cracker. It is elegant, showing restrained berry fruits, balanced by tannins and fruit acids,” and I purchased a couple of cases intending to age them.

Opening this bottle for Dezels’s Pinotage Party I was struck first by its inviting mulberry bouquet. But on the palate is seemed to have closed up. The spicy berry flavours, so noticeable when it was young, were subdued. What we had here was a medium bodied, well balanced beautifully coloured restrained tight wine, enjoyable and serious but not as exuberant as I’d like. The maturation chart on the back label (see below) shows 2010 as the year it should reach optimum drinking, but I think I’ll age it more for maximum enjoyment.

Kanonkop Estate
Pinotage 2006
WO Estate Wine Simonsberg-Stellenbosch
14.5% abv

Kanonkop 'Limited Release' Black Label Released

The promised "very special wine at a price to match", as described here by Johann Krige last month is on sale.

Kanonkops black label 2006 Pinotage is available only from two outlets,
Cybercellar.com and Wade Bales Wine Society. Only 1000 bottles have made, the grapes coming from the oldest vines on the farm, and the first 600 have been released with a price of 1,000 ZAR per bottle (82GBP/132USD). The last tranche of 400 bottles will be released later this year. There is a limit of 36 bottles per customer, but according to .Angela Lloyd's blog all the available bottles sold out instantly.

Angela was at the winery for the launch party where she tasted the new wine which she describes as follows:

It is as concentrated as one might hope from such venerable vines but the aromatic and flavour intensity is deep and refined rather than showy. The family likeness of spice (some cinnamon), a mix of red fruits (redcurrants, plums and raspberries) melded with a subtle savouriness and lifted by great freshness lend a clear Kanonkop signature, if on a different level from the standard and CWG wines. It is a fabulous wine, regardless of variety

Interview with Kanonkop's Abrie Beeslaar

Marisa D'Vari at A Wine Story has posted an interview with Kanonkop winemaker Abrie Beeslaar about his 2007 Pinotage.

Read it here.

Pink Kadette for Kanonkop

Kanonkop Estate’s popular red blend Kadette will soon have a pink partner. The rosé Kadette will be made from Pinotage.

For some years Kanonkop has concentrated on just four wines; as well as Kadette there is varietal Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinotage and the Paul Sauer Bordeaux blend.

“You can’t stand still,” owner Johann Krige told me, “you must keep innovating.” Currently in barrel is a premium Pinotage which the estate will release in 2010 through negocients. “We won’t even sell it at the winery,” said Johan. “It will be a very special wine at a price to match.”


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Kanonkop & Beyerskloof makePremium Pinotages

The best Pinotages are going to get less good in order for the cream of the crop to be bottled separately as 'super-cuvees' at super-expensive prices.

Currently Kanonkop Pinotage costs around 18 pounds in the UK or 170 R from the winery, Beyerskloof’s top Pinotage is their black label Reserve at 8 – 11 pounds in the UK or around 100 R at the winery.

But they won’t be the best wines for much longer. Kanonkop and Beyerskloof both intend bringing out premium ‘super-cuvees’. I guess they’ve been spurred on by seeing newcomers like Ashbourne (24 pounds), Laroche’s L’Avenir Grand Vin (a stonking 27 pounds) and Francois Naudé’s own label (400 R) come on the market.

But if you’re already making the best Pinotage how do you encourage the punters to pay more? Seems like barrel selection is the answer. Identify a special barrel and – instead of using it to improve the rest – bottle it separately and price it accordingly.

Beyerskloof got two wines into the 2008 Pinotage Top 10; the Reserve and a new label called Diesel. Diesel, named after owner Beyers Truter’s recently deceased favourite hound, was a barrel selection. It was placed in a standard bottle and the normal black ‘Reserve’ label was tweaked with Diesel replacing the word Reserve.

Diesel will be the name of Beyeskloof’s new flagship Pinotage. It will have a new label and a heavily impressive new bottle. And will cost as much as three times the price of the Reserve, according to June’s issue of The Drinks Business. Retailing it at around 30 pounds brings it into line with L’Avenir Grand Vin.

But what about the Reserve? What about the standard Kanonkop? I reported back in April 2007 Kanonkop owner Johann Krige’s reaction to a question about whether they’ll be a ‘Reserve’ Kanonkop. Johann stepped in to answer vehemently that there never will be. “Kanonkop wines are the best we make,” he stated. “We only make the best. We don’t make second best wines.” But the experimental wines they have made at Kanonkop from 50 year old plus vines are “mind-boggling” according to Johann.

So does releasing a limited bottling of a special barrel selection automatically mean the standard label is not the best? It’s a moot question which they are tussling with at Kanonkop, as Johann admits in the video below taken at last months London wine fair. He wants to expose the wine to imbibers – maybe these wines will not be sold but poured at tastings



I’m torn. Pinotage is a great wine, so you would expect there to be premium priced bottles and people willing to pay the money. Problem is that I’m not one of them. Much as I like to drink the very best Pinotages, thirty quid a bottle is a bit too much for my pension. And I’m not sure how I feel about the concept of wines whose prices are yanked sky high even although they cost no more to make just in order to have a prestige premium priced wine.

As always the market will decide.

Kanonkop's Abrie Beeslar is International Winemaker of the Year

Abrie Beeslaar, (pictured right) winemaker at top Pinotage winery Kanonkop Estate, is the International Winemaker of the Year it was announced at the International Wine and Spirits Competition's (IWSC) gala award ceremony in Londons last night.

Kanonkop also received the Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande trophy for the best blended red wine with its Paul Sauer 2003, as well as the Dave Hughes Trophy for the Best South African Producer.

"It has been a historic year for Kanonkop and it is truly an honour to have been able to share in the winery's successes," Abrie said. "To be awarded this accolade as the world's best winemaker for the year is an honour one never even dreams about, so the award has simply not sunk in yet.

"But I do know that the success belongs to the whole team working in the cellar and vineyards, as well as those who promote our wines throughout the world. But nothing equals the importance of nature with which we are blessed on Kanonkop. It's the soil and the climate that produces the grapes for the wines I am able make to the kind of quality that we are lucky enough to receive this kind of recognition for."

Abrie also added that he sees this award as recognition of South Africa's potential to compete with the best wine producing countries in the world.

"This is the third time that the award has gone to a South African winemaker and should once more prove that our wines are at home with the best in the world."

Abrie's award comes at the end of an outstanding year for Kanonkop. It was the first wine-farm to receive the Château Pichon Langueville Comtesse de Lalande trophy for a third time. And locally Kanonkop was recently named Wine Producer of the Year by the 2009 Platter South African Wine Guide.


Thanks to - www.wine.co.za

Beyerskloof wins IWSC Trophy

I've written before about the Beyers Truter Reserve own label made for UK supermarket Tesco. I have bought a goodly number of them myself, and by co-incidence opened a bottle of the 2006 last night.

I'm not the only fan though --- the International Wine & Spirit Competition 2008 recently announced that they'd awarded the KWV Trophy for Pinotage to Beyerskloof for their Tesco Finest Beyers Truter Pinotage 2006.

7000 wines from more than 70 countries were entered into the International Wine & Spirit Competition 2008, the premier competition of its kind in the world, held in London . Amongst the Trophies being announced 15 were open to wines from anywhere in the world. South Africa picked up five trophies and it is remarkable that four of the trophies were won by producers that come from within a radius of ten kilometres. The other three, some from wineries that have appeared on these pages for their Pinotages, are The Mission Hill Family Estate Trophy for Chardonnay presented to Delheim Wines for their Delheim Chardonnay Sur Lie 2007.The Spier Trophy for Merlot presented to Hartenberg for their Hartenberg Merlot 2005. The Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Trophy for Blended Red Wine presented to Kanonkop Wine Estate for their Kanonkop Paul Sauer 2003.

Pictured left to right are Beyers Truter (Beyerskloof), Abrie Beeslaar (Kanonkop), Brenda van Niekerk (Delheim) and Carl Schultz (Hartenberg).

Kanonkop 2006 - Tasting Good

Kanonkop owner Johann Krige (pictured right) was pouring the newly released 2006 vintages of Pinotage and Kadette Cape Blend at last months London International Wine Fair.

Kanonkop have the most detailed labels in the Cape – although USA labelling requirements unfortunately means consumers there don’t get the useful maturation chart on the back label, so as a service to them I am showing the labels below.

Kanonkop Pinotage 2006
Just bottled, but I’m thinking this is showing all the signs of being another cracker. It is elegant, showing restrained berry fruits, balanced by tannins and fruit acids.

Kanonkop Kadette 2006
A classic Cape Blend of three Bordeaux varieties - Cabernet Sauvignon (32%) & Franc (9%), and Merlot (20%) - married to 39% Pinotage. It is immediately attractive, with ripe fruits, sweet blueberry and raspberry flavours, really enjoyable easy drinking. Johann says “it has sweet accessibility from Pinotage that you can’t get from Cabernet Sauvignon, but without getting too fruity".

Back label from Kanonkop 2006 Pinotage. Note the 'Estate Wine of Origin' appellation, showing all the grapes were grown on the estate, the wine made matured and bottled on the Estate.



Back label from Kanonkop 2006 Kadette Cape Blend. Note the 'Wine of Origin' appellation, showing that is is not an Estate wine. Some of the grapes would have come from vineyards outside the Estate boundaries.

Decanter Trophy for Kanonkop

Kanonkop Pinotage 2004 won the Decanter 2008 World Wine Awards 2008 Trophy for 'South African Red Single Varietal Over £10' and Southern Right's 2006 Pinotage won the only Gold medal awarded to Pinotage. Another 36 Pinotages won awards (9 Silvers, 16 Bronzes, 11 Commendeds). Six Cape Blends won awards, 1 Bronze and 5 Commended. Kanonkop are also celebrating winning the Trophy for 'Red Bordeaux Varietals over £10'. Award details are here.

But the picture is not so bright over at the International Wine Challenge where 28 Pinotages gained Bronze and Commended awards, and a solitary Silver was won by Majors Hill 2006. Award details are here.

Congratulations to them all.

A Historic Evening with Beyers Truter

Being invited to plunder Beyers Truter’s private cellar was dream come true. There is capacity for 30,000 bottles; many of the wines were made by Beyers and alongside Kanonkop and Beyerskloof are own label wines from UK supermarkets he’s made wine for. And there’s also an eclectic collection of many different South African wines and a good number of wines from other countries.

Beyers had invited me to his seaside house to join him and Francois Naude,(previously winemaker at L'Avenir Estate, now independent consultant) and Corius Visser (winemaker with Beyers at Croydon Vineyard Estate), for an evening tasting from his collection. It was a chance for the three winemakers to get a night away from the stress of vintage time. (pictured right from top: Corius, Beyers and Francois hunting elusive bottles)

Francois, Corius and I went hunting for interesting wines; Beyers had suggested we choose eight bottles but he soon joined in pulling out wines and we quickly had 11 wines. My picks were a 1982 Zonnebloem, 1996 CWG L’Avenir and a 1999 Kanonkop.

Upstairs the wines were opened. Beyers explained the format of these evenings “We pour a glass of each in turn and drink and discuss them.” There was no spittoon, we would take time to relish the wines.

The wines were

1978 Groot Contantia Superior (Constantia)
1982 Zonnebloem (Coastal)
1985 Cederberg (Cederberg)
1987 Oude Necktar
1989 Clos Malverne
1989 Simonsig CWG Reserve
1996 Paradyskloof
1996 L’Avenir CWG
1999 Kanonkop
1999 Kumkani
2006 Binyamina Teva (Israel)
2006 Muddy Water (New Zealand)

Wine of Origin Stellenbosch except where indicated

1978 Groot Constantia Superior (Constantia)
“They were one of the first Estates to make Pinotage”, Beyers remarked.
PM – “The cork is crumbly and ullage was low. Deep red colour, brown on rim, beautiful colour for a 30 year old wine. Aged sweet bouquet but no oxidation, a sweet toffee light body with touch of acid on finish”
FN = “If I tasted this blind I’d think it was an old sweet white wine, not a red. Fairly high acid which helps it to keep.”
BT – “Very typical of the area, pine needle and honey with high acid.”

1982 Zonnebloem (Coastal)
BT - “The fruit for this came from Kanonkop and Bellevue”
PM – “Dark clear colour, nose of forest floor, lively bright exciting red berry flavours, sweet, lots of life. A beautiful elegant lady of a wine”
BT – “Like water running over a burnt forest floor.”


1985 Cederberg (Cederberg)
PM – “Deep red colour, smells sweet, old and oxidised with a hint of pine toilet cleaner. Sherry taste, sweet like a dessert wine, acids developing in glass.”
BT –“ Not completely gone, over extracted, like syrup.”
FN – “Heavy wine from a light vintage, quite black, too concentrated. I wouldn’t expect this wine from this vintage and area.”
There was some discussion about concentrating this wine to use as a marinade or for drizzling over Christmas cake.

1987 Oude Necktar
BT – “The fruit came from the same block used by Neil Ellis for ‘Swan Song’”
PM –“Sweet and short, light boded and short finish.”
CV –“Fynbos-like nose.”
FN: Blue gum, mint, herbaceousness. Spicy nose offers more than taste does.”
BT –“Acids are too high for the fruit”
FN – “ I think the grapes were picked unripe which explains the high acids.”

1989 Clos Malverne
PM –“Pale light red, luminous, not much nose. Ripe sweet fig flavours, light bodied”
FN – “Beautiful nose, just too acidic”
BT – “ Too high acid. All this wines plus points can’t overcome the acids”
CV – “Too high acid”


1989 Simonsig CWG Reserve
BT – “Very good colour. This is the first one showing more oak and blackberry. Very well balanced, classic blackberry and oak. Was made for CWG, had more oak and will
last 30-40 years.”
FN – “Excellent colour, herby herbaceous flavours, fruity acid, nice tannins makes it nice and firm.”
PM –“Delightful; sweet blackberry and spices.”

1996 Paradyskloof
PM – “Smells old, light bodied, thin red currant short finish”
BT – “ Bit of burnt coal and smoke”
FN – “Lesser vintage, little green. The wine is still too young and the tannins still green. Give it some age and let tannins soften. This is a 2nd label wine; not bad but too young.”

1996 L’Avenir CWG
BT – “Excellent colour, farmyard nose, wood and mushroom. Interesting: it tastes the same. Very complex”
PM – “Isn’t ‘farmyard’ an indication of brett?”
BT –“Lots of people say farmyard equals brett, but that is just Simonsberg. It’s a Simonsberg characteristic.”
FN – “Very forest floor nose. Always had a farm-yardy characteristic – which is what I like and often find in Bordeaux. Nice and full.”
PM – “Beautiful: complex and ripe. Lots going on.



1999 Kanonkop
PM – “Incredible rich black red colour – superb balance. Concentrated dense fruit, great complexity and it is just so drinkable.” I selected this wine because I’d been so impressed with it when I tasted it last year at a tasting at Kanonkop; I wanted to taste it again and I wasn’t disappointed.
FN – “Bit of farmyard, black cherry, tobacco, red cherry.”
BT – “Blackberry – cherry flavoured cigar.”

1999 Kumkani
FN – “Lacks complexity of previous; after nose it under delivers on the palate.”
BT – “Bit of farmyard but not enough depth to carry it.”
PM – “Light bright, not very interesting.

2006 Binyamina Teva (Israel)
I was surprised to see this in Beyer’s cellar but I’d introduced him to the MD of winery last year at the London trade fair and Beyers is keen to visit them in Israel.
BT – “Yes – raspberry and tea. There’s not enough oak in this. Medicinal flavour will be removed with oak. With a bit of oak it would make a fantastic wine.
FN – Dense raspberry. There’s a bit of oak on this; it tastes like crushed raspberries. Ideal to do malo in barrel (or use staves) to tone it down. Very nice acidity.

2006 Muddy Water (New Zealand)
This was the twelfth wine which I had brought from New Zealand. It was winner of our blind tasting of NZ Pinotages and I was keen to hear what the South Africans thought of it.
FN: - Quite a light colour, good nose, good varietal character. Nice fruit; I like this
BT: - Very Pinot Noir, I’d love to taste this older.
FN: I’d never have guessed the alcohol level was 15%, colour is very light, concentration of wine should be more to handle wood, but it matches. If I was consulting there I’d work the wine harder in fermentation to get more extraction. It’s a bit light; needs more density in flavour profile and more colour. Very nice fruit, I’d just like more intensity”

By now it was quite late; Beyers got braai going and cooked meats which we ate with more glasses of the opened wines, and so to bed. The amount left in the bottles next morning indicated our favourite three were Kanonkop, Simonsig and L'Avenir.

That morning was magical. Sitting on the balcony with a coffee in the sun we watched two groups of whales to our left while a huge rainbow over the ocean on our right indicated a storm on the other side of the Hottentot Holland Mountains. Then the car was packed, the winemakers switched on their mobile phones and we headed back to Stellenbosch.

Many thanks to Beyers Truter

Cannon and Castle - L'Avenir and Kanonkop

Yesterday I took a brief drive up the R44 to visit L’Avenir and Kanonkop.

L’Avenir acquired neighbouring vineyards of the defunct Sentinel, and with it the ‘castle’ which was re-opened last week as the new tasting room for L’Avenir (above). Gone are the turrets, battlements and historic cannons. In their place is a thoroughly modern corporate tasting room with leather benches, standing tables and logo emblazoned spittoons. I’m an old romantic, and no matter the warmth of the greeting from the lady in the tasting room, this place felt heartless after the tasting corner in L’Avenir’s working winery barrel cellar.

I tasted the standard L’Avenir Pinotage 2006 which was an impressive dark purple colour with attractive sweet fruit on the approach followed by red berries but a tart finish. I asked, and was told the bottle had been opened the previous afternoon, some 24 hours previously. I don’t open my wines a day before drinking and I wondered if the sharpness was an effect of such long opening in a warm climate. This wine retails at the cellar for 120 Rand, (about £9.60/$20).

Also open for tasting was the Grand Vin Pinotage 2005 at a whopping 250 rand or (£20/$40). This had a dark red colour and was powerful yet sweetly fruity. Some nice spice in the middle, but let down by a sharply tart finish. Opened too long?

A bit further along the R44 a cannon still marks the entrance to Kanonkop Estate.

I wanted to taste their 2005 Pinotage (140 Rand - £11.20/$22.40) which is now available – I had last tasted it a year ago. It was bottled in July ’06 and bottle-matured in their cellars until ready for release at the end of 2007.

This wine tastes so soft; it is one of the softest Kanonkop’s I can recall. But in the fruity body there is a structural spine of finely tuned tannins down the middle followed by cleansing acids on the finish. It reminded me a lot of the 1999 vintage that was also very drinkable when young – so much so that I drank all mine shortly after purchase and then discovered on re-tasting it at the winery last year that it was even better with age. A mistake I will not make with the deliciously approachable 2004 of which I have bought prodigious amounts to drink and to keep, and now I must also plan on making room for some 2005’s when they finally appear on the UK market.

I happened to see winemaker Abrie Bruwer in the tasting room and he told me Kanonkop had always intended to make wines that would age – hence the back label maturation chart. But modern viticultural practises and innovations -- such as the grape sorting table which allowed the removal of stalks and unripe grapes --enabled them to make a wine easier to drink young yet still capable of long aging. Of this 2005 vintage Abrie said he tasted a ‘tomato cocktail’ with lots of red berries.

And what of the 2008 vintage? “The grapes still need a little more time for optimum ripeness,” says Abrie. “We’ll be picking them when they’re ready, and not before.”

I wonder how much longer Kanonkop will be able to show the maturation chart. There is no room for it on labels for sale in the USA; the Surgeon Generals's mandatory fatuous warning takes its space. The label pictured has recycling logos, plus the nonsensical French pregnancy sign. There is increasing pressure for more information and warning messages to legally required.

Drinking Kanonkop '04

A question from Richard Auffrey in Stoneham, Massachusetts, got me thinking.

He said "I recently purchased a few bottles of the 2004 Kanonkop Estate Pinotage. I am very much of fan of Pinotage. I read your blog, the Pinotage Club, and saw your post of 8 May. You stated that Kanonkop Pinotages need bottle aging and should not be drank until they are ten years old. Would that apply to the 2004 as well?"

I checked through my records (thank you CellarTracker) and saw that, although I had tasted Kanonkop 04 on several occasions, I hadn't sat down and enjoyed a leisurely bottle with a meal.

So with a roast beef dinner (with roasted potatoes & parsnips, sautéed leeks, steamed cauliflower florets and Yorkshire pudding) planned it was an ideal opportunity to retrieve a bottle of Kanonkop 2004 Pinotage from my EuroCave. The back label graph suggested that it wouldn’t enter its optimum drinking window before 2008. But Richard was waiting on the answer……

The wine is very dark, indeed opaque black with a dark red rim. The immediate impression on the nose and palate is of bright berry fruits. (We’ve recently been blackberrying and this wine brought back memories).

You wouldn't know that the wine has spent 16 months in small new French oak barriques because the tannins were very soft and integrated. Over the course of dinner the wine opened up, revealing layers of flavour under the initial bramble berries like a exotic dancer discarding veils. There was coffee, dark chocolate and black pepper. Later tobacco leaf and then a little smoky bacon developed on the finish. This was drinking very nicely now but I’m going to keep some back and I look forward to seeing how they age in bottle.

So there you go, Richard. Drink now with pleasure, but be sure to retain some -- for this wine has a lot going for it. And thanks for the nudge to open this super wine.



The stickers are Veritas 2006 Double Gold and 2006 Pinotage Top 10 winner.

Details:
Price: Cellar door=140 ZAR, UK £17,USA=$28
Alc: 14.5%
WO: Estate WO Simonsberg Stellenbosch
Vines: Up to 59 years old
Drink: 2008-2020+

Pinotage Impresses Press

Neil Pendock reports on a press trip to Pinotage Country organised last week by Pinotage Association sponsors ABSA bank.

Last week’s press tour ended at Meerendal, home to one of the oldest Pinotage vineyards in the Cape, the aptly named Heritage Block, with its tiny berry grapes, tiny yields and a uniquely perfumed flavour profile. Wines made from this block confirm the point made by Meerendal GM Guy Kedian that "there are as many styles of Pinotage as there are producers".

From the surprisingly Bordeaux-style Simonsig Frans Malan ’97 Cape blend to the surprisingly juvenile unwooded Simonsig ’95 to the 1.12 million bottles of Truter’s fruit driven Beyerskloof Pinotage ‘06, great value at R33.50 a bottle. From the seamlessly elegant Allée Bleue ’95 made from tiny high altitude bush vine grapes from the Piekenierskloof to the Devon Valley fruit bombs Zaine Pritchard sells to Russia and the exciting Simonsig MCC ’06 made from Pinotage and Pinot Meunier – a step up from two previous vintages snapped up by the UK Waitrose supermarket chain.

From Truter’s violet-infused Cape/Portugal blend of Touriga Naçional and Pinotage to Kaapzicht’s effortlessly elegant Steytler Vision Cape Blend presented by the effortlessly elegant Yngvild Steytler and the Pinotages De Wet Viljoen makes at Neethlingshof which confirm just how seriously Cape Legends takes sometimes pilloried Pinotage.

My standout wine of the pilgrimage was a 1991 Kanonkop Pinotage, remarkably fresh and free of blemishes for a 16 year old teenager. Primary fruit flavours were still evident and had been complimented by the evolution of mushroom and forest floor flavours from the Pinot Noir parent of the grape. Along with the still vibrant 1982 Meerendal, it confirms the remarkable longevity of Perold’s grape.

A vertical tasting of Kanonkop vintages from the early ‘90s side-by-side those of a decade later was revealing: the ‘90s wines all had 10% less alcohol for wines made from grapes harvested from the same vineyard at approximately the same harvest date. Kanonkop winemaker Abrie Beeslaar offered several explanations – from Global Warming to cleaning-up the vineyard for leaf-roll virus. As he commented "the worse a vineyard looks, the better the wine you can make from the grapes – totally contrary to what we were taught at University". Leaf-roll virus inhibits sugar accumulation and increases hang-time – leading Beeslaar to comment, "I don’t believe leaf-roll virus is 100% negative" – a point often made by Chardonnay champion Mike Dobrovic with his Mulderbosh barrel fermented wines made from grapes grown on virus-infected vines.

On the subject of alcohol levels, Beeslaar notes that Pinotage fermented in traditional open cement tanks (like those from Jacobsdal, Kanonkop and Allée Bleue) also can expect up to 1% lower alcohols as compared to those fermented in stainless steel tanks.

Meerendal's Guy Kedian summed up "to those who say that Pinotage is not the varietal we should pin our flag to, I totally disagree. We should ignore the pretentious folk trying to turn it into something it isn’t, for their own benefit. At the end of the day, it’s only wine – not some mystical thing".

Source -- www.wine.co.za. Reposted with thanks.

Pinotage matures – but cork crumbles

For as long as I remember I have been telling anyone who would listen that Kanonkop’s Pinotages need bottle age.

"Don't drink it before its 10 years old," I'd advise. There were exceptions. I remember the 1999 vintage was very accessible when young, and I think some recent vintages have also been youthfully delightful . But, as is fitting with its recognised status of a South African ‘First Growth’, they are wines that repay keeping.

And uniquely Kanonkop wines feature a maturation graph on their back label, showing the progress from fermentation through bottling (shown in a warning grey block titled Bottle Shock) and gradually rising to an area marked Optimum Drinking. Anyone following the suggestion on the back of the 1995 vintage knew they should keep the bottle unopened for at least six years after purchase, since the optimum drinking period starts in 2002 and carries on past 2011.

Monday was the May Day public holiday in England. For obvious reasons this is my favourite holiday, and we celebrated with roast chicken with all the trimmings and a bottle of 1995 Kanonkop Pinotage.

I’d tasted the '95 Cape Winemakers Guild bottling at the winery in March and it was superb.

But warning bells rang as I tried to remove the cork. The corkscrew just pulled out crumbling cork, two more attempts just removed more cork fragments, and the visible part of the cork I had managed to lift a fraction of an inch above the bottle was stained red with wine.

I managed to remove the remains of the cork with a two pronged ‘butlers’ friend’ cork lifter.

The wine had a faint cabbage smell of old Pinot Noir, but the taste was delightful, soft rich blackcurrant fruits and some Pinotage sweetness. It was really drinkable and I have to admit we just enjoyed it and the bottle was finished much sooner than usual. The wine had a reasonable 13% abv (the latest vintage is 14.5%)

I have two bottles remaining of the 1995, and although I think the wine is on a plateau and will be drinking well for many years to come, I cannot trust the cork will keep the wines in that condition. The cork’s elasticity is going – the red stains along its length show that. And oxidation occurs as the elasticity goes.

The strongest argument against screw-caps (and one with which I have some sympathy) is that cork is proven for aging wines. Here we have a wine that will, can, and does age -- and 12 years isn’t long for wine -- and yet the cork isn’t up to it.

Maybe this is a one-off poor cork, but I’m not risking it. I’m opening my 1995’s sooner than later, and you might consider doing the same. Shame, as I was intending keeping them a while for another special occasion.

Note: the opener gained the name 'butlers' friend' because they allowed a dishonest servant to open and drink his employers best bottles, replacing them with cheaper wines and replace the cork without showing any mark on the cork.

(For the record, the wines have been kept since purchase on their sides in a temperature and humidity controlled EuroCave wine cellar.)