WoTM - Beeslaar Pinotage 2012

Abrie Beeslaar is winemaker at Kanonkop. Since taking up duties in 2002 he has seen that range expand with the barrel selection ‘black label’ estate Pinotage, and red and rosé Kadette Pinotages, and won the International Winemaker of the Year Trophy for 2008 at the International Wine and Spirits Competition.

 

My Wine of the Month for May is the first vintage from Abrie's private venture. Beeslaar 2012 Pinotage is from a single Stellenbosch vineyard. Only 4,700 bottles were produced, around 16 barrels.

Dense intense red with bright edges and softy scented with blackberries. First impression in mouth is of creamy smooth softness, then plum flavours backed with a savouriness on the palate finishing with a dusting of coffee.

This is a gorgeous wine now, but although the label says it’s best to drink from 2014 I think it’d benefit from keeping longer. It’s not yet been in bottle for a year and I think with a little more time the oak effects of 17 months in 50/50 first and second fill would make way to reveal more fruit.

Beeslaar Pinotage 2012 is available in the UK and Hongkong from importer Vincisive Wines Ltd, www.vincisive.co.uk www.vincisive.com.hk

Beeslaar Pinotage 2012

WO Stellenbosch

Alcohol: 14.5

Residual Sugar: 1.29

pH: 3.65

Total Acidity: 5.66

Total Sulphites: 95mg/L

Thanks to Darren Brogden of Vincisive for the sample.

Pinotage Retrospective 1966 - 2012

Wines of South Africa held a tasting yesterday focusing on Chenin and Pinotage. Greg Sherwood MW tutored us on nine excellent Chenins before handing over to  Gavin Patterson who is the winemaker at, and director of, Sumaridge Wines in Walker Bay.

Gavin Patterson

Gavin told us he first planted Pinotage 25 years ago in his native Zimbabwe and his 1994 vintage was voted best wine at a tasting in South Africa attended by Beyers Truter. He said that when training as a winemaker he was taught that the taste profile of Pinotage then was acetone, prunes and leather. Overextraction doesn’t suit Pinotage, and winemakers are now making very different Pinotages. It is a variety, says Gavin, that is very stable in barrel and very ageworthy. We were about to prove that second statement.

The wines:

1.       Diemersdal Pinotage, 1998

ABV: 13.6%

Blend: 100% Pinotage

Region: Durbanville

Winemaker: Thys Louw

From 22 year old (in 1998) dry-farmed vines. Served from a decanter this was dry and dusty, still tight, but full bodied and dark fruited.

2.       Kanonkop Pinotage, 1999

ABV: 13.5%
Blend: 100% Pinotage
Region: Simonsberg – Stellenbosch
Winemaker: Beyers Truter

 From bush vines then 54 years old, this was gorgeously soft with sweet fruit. I loved this when I first tasted it in 2000 and every subsequent time it has just got better and better.

3.       Kanonkop Pinotage, 2003

ABV: 14.5%

Blend: 100% Pinotage

Region: Simonsberg – Stellenbosch

Winemaker: Abrie Beeslar

Change of winemaker and the vines are four years older, this is silky and spicy but maybe a bit less voluptuous than the 99 it's a crackingly enjoyable wine.

4.       Simonsig Pinotage, 2003

ABV: 14.8%
Blend: 100% Pinotage
Region: Stellenbosch
Winemaker: Johan Malan

A surprise for me because this is Simonsig’s unwooded Pinotage, though some tasters thought it had seen oak. It is a beautiful wine; soft, sweet raspberry and berry fruits. An elegant wine.

5.       Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve, 2006

ABV: 14.6%
Blend: 100% Pinotage
Region: Stellenbosch
Winemaker: Anri Truter

A wine I have bought a lot of. Mellowing now, light bodied, sweet and elegant with a long finish. Almost a feminine wine, if one can believe that of Pinotage. 

 

6.       Neethlingshof Pinotage, 2006

ABV: 14.4%

Blend: 100% Pinotage

Region: Stellenbosch

Winemaker: De Wet Viljoen

Feremnted in rototanks with 14 months aging in 43% new French (80%) and American (20%) oak barrels.

A chunky wine with grainy tannins and chewy fruit. Very much a masculine Pinotage to contrast with the previous.

7.       L’Avenir Pinotage, 2011

ABV: 14%
Blend: 100% Pinotage
Region: Stellenbosch
Winemaker: Dirk Coetzee

Clean fresh spicy fruit; well integrated oak tannins, delicious.

8.       Altydgedacht  Pinotage, 2011

ABV: 14.7%

Blend: 100% Pinotage

Region: Durbanville

Winemaker: Etienne Louw

Four days cold soak to encourage gentle extraction of fruit flavours then fermented in closed tanks with pump-over. Aged 14 months in 40% new American (80%) and French (20%) oak barrels for 10 months.

Clean, refreshing and very elegant. Minerally with spicy black cherry fruits. Lovely wine.

9.       Lyngrove Platinum Pinotage, 2012

ABV: 14.5%
Blend: 100% Pinotage
Region: Stellenbosch
Winemaker: Danielle le Roux

 Barrel selection, cold soaked and aged 15 months in 40% new French oak barrels. Deliciously silky smooth with a tangy finish.

10.     Sumaridge Epitome, 2009

ABV: 14.1%
Blend: 57% Shiraz, 43% Pinotage
Region: Walker Bay
Winemaker: Gavin Patterson

 This is Gavin’s own wine. Sumaridge don’t  nowcmake a Pinotage varietal. This Cape blend was a winner in the 2013 Cape Blend competition and as part of his prize Gavin is soon heading off to visit winemakers in Portugal’s Douro where he is intending exploring their indigenous varieties.

Barrel selection, aged 12 months in 50% ch oak  500L and 225L barrels. “I’m making a Cape blend with a Rhone element – the Shiraz brings its pepperyness to the blend.”

Powerful tasting wine, but quite restrained flavours as if the two strong tasting varieties cancelled each other out.

Then came a surprise. Two old wines, Meerendal 1982 and Stellenbosch Farmers Winery ‘Lanzerac’ 1966…..

Meerendal 1982 tasted meaty and of forest floor, like dried meats on a bed of mushrooms.

SFW ‘Lanzerac’ 1966. This is only the seventh ever vintage of a Pinotage varietal, the first ever commercial bottling being the 1959 vintage released under the Lanzerac brand in 1961. They were intended for immediate drinking, not for keeping. The cork in this bottle had guarded its contents for almost half a century and did not want to surrender its contents, but finally it was defeated and the wine poured into a decanter and served. A light brown colour, this 48 year old wine was surprisingly fresh, with fine sweet berry fruits and a good body. It was quite delicious. 

Thanks to WoSA, the Pinotage Association for supplying the wines, Gavin Patterson for telling us about them and High Timber South African restaurant on the banks of the Thames for hosting the tasting and making us so very welcome.

 I learned that when dining at High Timber one doesn’t choose wine from a list; instead you descend to their cellar to choose from 32,000 mostly South African bottles including an exclusive bottling of the FMC Chenin. FMC is their best selling RSA white (Chateau d’Yquem is their best selling French wine!) while Newton Johnson Pinot Noir is their best selling RSA red wine.

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WOTM - Le Vin de Francois 2010

My wine on the month for April is Le Vin de Francois 2010 that I had several times when lunching at Delheim Winery  during my recent stay in the Cape.

It's the wine of Francois Naude, made from barrels he's selected from seven top Pnotage wineries to blend together into a superb example of Pinotage.

Francois Naude made his name at L'Avenir Estate. While her he won the Pinotage Top 10 Competition more times than anyone else.

His retirement didn't last long: soon he was consulting at wineries and then creating his own wine from the best barrels he encountered. The wine is sold at an annual auction. The only other way to get hold of a bottle is from a reseller and Delheim -- which regularly supply barrels -- had a few bottles for sale in their tasting room which I was delighted to buy.

The label might not be informative, but the bottle comes wrapped in an A3 sheet of paper, see below, which details this wine and the various wines and wineries that supplied the barrels.






Informative wrapper around bottle

This wine is 100% Pinotage, a blend of  two barrels from  Beyerskloof (winemaker Anri Truter), Kanonkop (Abrie Beeslaar ), Lanzerac (Wynand Lategan), and one each from Delheim (Brenda van Niekerk), L'Avenir (Tinus Els), Simonsig (Johan Malan), and Wildekrans ( William Wilkinson). Widekrans is in Bot River, the others are Stellenbosch. 

 

I love Francois' wines, he is a consummate master of Pinotage and this wine is a revelation. It was probably not doing it justice to drink it so young, but I couldn't resist, and I couldn't take them all home. Paired with Delheim's Garden Restaurant Cape Malay curry this wine danced on my tongue. There's so much depth of flavour with dark plums to the fore and a long lingering finish. Gorgeous stuff. Not cheap, but worth every penny.

 

 

 

All Change at L'Avenir

 

It’s all change at L’Avenir. The dark brown labels with African pictographs which were introduced in 1995 have been replaced with a clean modern-looking label which is an updating of L’Avenir’s original label showing rows of vines leading to the winery.

The new labels cover three tiers of wine. The entry level wines under the ‘Far & Near’ branding are priced at the cellar door from 50-55 Rand and use grapes sourced from outside the farm.

The top two ranges once again are ‘Estate’ Wine of Origin.

The mid-range wines are priced from 90-120 Rand. The premium range are registered Single Vineyards, and priced at R180 for the Single Block Chenin Blanc 2012 and R300 for the Single Block Pinotage 2012.

These bottles are individually numbered and signed by wine maker Dirk Coetzee. In another acknowledgement of the past, the bottles are dedicated to Francois Naudé, Lavenir’s winemaker and viticulturist from its beginning until his retirement after the estate was purchased by the French wine company Laroche.

The estate vineyards have produced exceptional wines over the years — at the time of his retirement Francois Naudé had won the Pinotage Top 10 Competition more times than anyone else — and it is good to have the Estate certification to again confirm the source of the wine.

Even better for those who like to drink a wine with a sense of place and terroir is the single vineyard registration of these blocks. Their labels are based on a satellite image of the vineyard with the named block highlighted in gold.

The Estate Pinotage 2012 is wonderfully exciting now, lively and giving real pleasure. It’s a wine that made me stop and say ‘wow’. Could keep but I’m enjoying it too much to wait.

 

Block 02 Pinotage 2012 is a taut, powerful, intense yet restrained wine. I’m keeping mine for a several years because I think this is going to develop into a real humdinger.

 

 

WOTM - Spier 21 Gables 2011

My Wine of the Month for March is Spier 21 Gables 2011

Having tasted quite a lot, but never enough, Pinotages in the past three weeks here in the Cape I’ve found it really difficult to pick a wine of the month this time. So many stand out, so many have been delicious and  enjoyable.

But a decision had to be made and by a whisker Spier’s premium ‘21 Gables’ 2011 is my choice.

I enjoyed it with lunch at the wine farm’s ‘Eight’ restaurant – a farm to table operation where the menu changes from day to day according to what the farmers bring in from the fields.

We had an excellent waitron and were impressed that the Pinotage was served chilled.

This is a very modern style of Pinotage, restrained and elegant but with oodles of fruit underneath. Four and a half stars in Platter and worthy of five. I’d have bought a case there and then if I could carry them home with me.  160 Rand at the cellar door.

 

According to the fact sheet on Spier's web site, the 2011 Pinotage's

Grapes were hand harvested to minimize damage to the berries. Grapes were chilled before bunch sorting. After de-stemming, the berries were sorted by hand to remove raisins, pink berries and large berries. Cold soaking preceded temperature-controlled fermentation in stainless steel tanks and open-top French oak vats. Free run wine was drained to a combination of 1st and 2nd fill barrels and matured for 18 months

Congrats to Frans Smit and his team! 

Pinotage Ale: A World First

Beyers ‘King of Pinotage’ Truter’s winery is a temple to the Pinotage grape. The winery logo on walls and bottle labels is a distinctive bright red Pinotage leaf. The Red Leaf restaurant serves Pinotage flavoured foods, including the famed Pinotage Burger with its dressing of Pinotage onion jam. In the tasting room you can sample and purchase red, white, pink and sparkling Pinotage wines, and also fortified port-style wines fortified with Pinotage brandy.

If it can be improved by Pinotage (and few things can’t) then Beyers has done it -- with ice cream, Pinotage jam, and Pinotage infused meats and sausages.

Recently Beyers was on a marketing trip to Belgium, rightly famed for the range and breadth of its beers. One evening, off duty and enjoying a glass of Kriek lambic ale, inspiration struck.

Once back home he booked himself on to a craft beer-making course. Kriek ale is steeped and fermented with cherries in a process that pre-dates the addition of hops.

What beer drinkers have been sadly lacking, however, is a Pinotage beer.

But salvation is on hand. Shortly Beyers will launch the world’s first Pinotage beer, provisionally titled Pinotale.

It will be available at first at Beyerskloof winery but Beyers tells me that he is in discussions with a large brewing company who are keen to distribute it nationally.

First South Africa: next the World!

 

 

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10 Years of Top Pinotage

Over at Top Wine SA, Mike Froud has posted his annual list of top wines based on the ten previous years results from various competitions and ratings.

There aren’t any surprises among the Pinotage producers where Mike’s top ten for 2014 are: 

• Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve
• Diemersfontein Carpe Diem Pinotage
• Kaapzicht Steytler Pinotage
• Kanonkop Pinotage
• Môreson Pinotage
• Rijk’s Pinotage
• Simonsig Redhill Pinotage
• Spier Private Collection Pinotage
• Stellenzicht Golden Triangle Pinotage
• Windmeul Pinotage Reserve

See the full Top 20 at here

  

Four of the above

• Kanonkop Pinotage
• Rijk’s Pinotage
• Simonsig Redhill Pinotage
• Stellenzicht Golden Triangle Pinotage

also make Top Wine SA’s 2014 Red Wine Hall of Fame for having received top accolades from the top tasting panels for at least eight vintages during the past 10 years.

WOTM – Swartland Bush Vine 2010

My Wine of the Month for February is Swartland Bush Vine 2010

Long before the ‘Swartland Revolutionaries’ discovered the area’s propensity for great wine  Swartland Winery was already making it. 

Sixty-five years ago, in 1948, fifteen Swartland farmers came together to build a co-operative winery 3 miles from the town of Malmesbury. The co-operative converted to a private company in 2006

Swartland , meaning the black land, refers to how it looked to the first travellers whosaw  it covered by  indigenous low bushy renosterbos vegetation which  looks black from a distance. 

When I first visited them fifteen years ago Swartland Winery was the largest under one roof in South Africa and it was really impressive to see the size of the operation. I first met cellar master Andries Blake, along with Abrie Beeslaar who went on to take over the winemaker’s baton at Kanonkop from Beyers Truter. Beyers often said that Andries  had made more Pinotage at Swartland than he, Beyers, ever would. Swartland Winery became partners with American wine giant Gallo to make their Sebeka range of South African wines.

But Swartland Winery doesn’t just make large volume wines. This excellent Bush Vine Pinotage is one such ‘boutique’ wine. Crafted on Andries Blake’s watch, it’s a sublime example of a fine wine where fruit and tannins are in perfect balance. Great mouth feel with a dash of Pinotage sweetness on the finish.

Here Andries talks about Swartland Bush Vine Pinotage

WOTM - Sterhuis Pinotage 2013

My Wine of the Month for January is a bit of a mystery. I was offered a small taste and then selfishly poured myself a larger glass to savour.

The bottle was shared  courtesy of Andre, South African ex-pat medical man currently working in a London hospital. He’d brought the bottle back from his latest trip home.

Andre took  delight in telling me that the wine-maker 'hates' Pinotage and the property sells off all their Pinotage to other wineries. But this time they had some fruit left and decided to make a wine but they didn’t want to be it to be like the usual ones that they don’t like. I don’t know the facts and Andre may be pulling my leg, because this wine is superb.

It’s definitely Pinotage —so I wonder what they’ve been judging the variety on— it's only 2013 vintage but tastes properly mature, full bodied, with elegant restrained fruit.

It doesn’t have the winery’s standard label—this is plainly printed on self-adhesive paper—and  the wine isn’t listed on their website but I guess it must be sold at the winery since they’ve put on the health warning.

Bottelary Hills are a prime source of first rate Pinotage grapes and I’d like to enjoy more than a glass of this with dinner so I’ll try to visit Sterhuis in March to find out more about this intriguing delicious wine, and whether it has changed the mind of its maker.  

 

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WOTM

 

Purity of fruit, linear and elegant, this is a delightful wine that left a contented smile on my face.

This really classy 2011 vintage from the Parker family at Altydgedacht in Durbanville won Pinotage Top 10 in 2012.

In English speaking countries you might find it labelled Ralph Parker   to save us struggling with pronouncing  Altydgedacht, as Richard Parker explains here

Top Pinotages of 2013

Top rated Pinotage producers in 2013 are Beyerskloof, Kanonkop, KWV, L'Avenir and Rijk's, according to Mike Froud at Top Wine SA.

Mike collates scores awarded during the year to South African wines by judges at blind-tastings around the world during the year.  

For the full list of top Pinotages, plus the best wines costing under 100 ZAR, see Top Wine SA

WOTM - Cape Spring 2012

My Wine of the Month for November is Cape Spring Pinotage 2012.

This was served, to my surprise, on a British Airways flight from London to Chicago. The red wine choice was between Pinotage or a southern French red and the cabin attendant told me Pinotage was most requested, a fact borne out by them having exhausted supplies on the trolley’s next trip up the aisle. 

The wine was light both in colour and body and had pleasing red berry flavours which were most refreshing at 30,000 feet.  

 

I don’t know anything about this wine other than Cape Spring appears to be a brand of French drinks’ company Grands Chais de France (GCF) and this wine was bulk shipped and bottled by GCF at their Caves De Landiras Winery, France, in airline sized 187.5ml plastic screw-capped bottles. It was then imported to the UK for British Airways by specialist suppliers to the travel industry Ratcliffe & Brown.

During my weeks in the USA I encountered only one Pinotage – the excellent Kanonkop Estate 2011 during a dinner sponsored by Wines of South Africa at the American Wine Society annual conference in Sandusky, Ohio. WoSA made an excellent choice to show case South African wines, as can be seen from the selection on the table in front of me.

Kanonkop Winemaker Launches Own Label

Abrie Beeslaar, winemaker Kanonkop Estate, has launched his own eponymous label with  4700 bottles of a single vineyard 2012 Pinotage.

 Christian Eedes says it is 'magnificent' - his review is here. 

Abries' site at www.beeslaar.co.za has details and a technical sheet about his new wine.

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Forget Pinotage's genetics

Forget Pinotage's genetics and concentrate on what's in the glass and how it was grown and made is the sensible conclusion of Bertus van Niekerk's thoughtful and interesting article Why you need to forget everything you know about Pinotage’s genetics at wine.co.za


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KWV The Mentors Wines Perold Trophy at IWSC

The Abraham Perold Trophy for Pinotage was won by KWV The Mentors Pinotage 2011.

The Trophy, which is sponsored by The Pinotage Association, was presented this evening at the International Wine and Spirits Competition's awards ceremony in London's 800 year-old Guildhall to KWV Wines by Peter F May  representing The Pinotage Association.

May, (centre in photograph) an Honorary Member of The Pinotage Association, said "I am proud  to present the Trophy on behalf of The Pinotage Association this evening. The IWSC Abraham Perold Trophy honours the creator of Pinotage, it encourages winemakers to achieve ever better wines from the variety and it recognises those who do.  KWV The Mentors 2011 is one superb example of the fine wine Pinotage is capable of."

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WOTM - Mellasat Enigma 2011 & Kanonkop 2009

For October exceptionally I have chosen two Wines of the Month - one white and one red.

This month I celebrated a very significant birthday with a lunch in a local restaurant to which all my relations and friends were invited. I chose a restaurant that allowed corkage because I wanted to serve my choice of wines – and the still wines would be – as you’d expect – Pinotage.

White was Enigma White Pinotage 2011 from Mellasat Vineyards in Paarl. Mellasat made the first commercially available white Pinotage. It’s a most impressive wine and had guests puzzled – most thought it French and assumed it was a white Burgundy. The wine had wood aging with battonage and it’s complex and rewarding.

The red was Kanonkop Estate Pinotage 2009. That year was one of the best vintages for a decade and it offered dense mulberry and blackberry flavours, yet I think with more time it will show even better than it is now.

The day was a great success and a considerable amount of wine was consumed and new converts to Pinotage were made.