Pinotage Top 20 Finalists

The 20 finalists for 2018 Absa Pinotage Top 10 Competition are:

Absa Top 10 Pinotage Finalists

Allée Bleue Black Series Old Vine Pinotage 2016WO Piekenierskloof (Franschhoek cellar), Winemaker Van Zyl du Toit

Alvi’s Drift Reserve Verreaux Pinotage 2015WO Worcester, Winemaker Alvi van der Merwe

Badsberg Pinotage 2017WO Breedekloof, Winemaker Henri Swiegers

Beyerskloof Diesel Pinotage 2015WO Stellenbosch, Winemaker Anri Truter

Diemersdal Pinotage Reserve 2017WO Durbanville, Winemaker Thys Louw

Diemersdal Pinotage 2015WO Durbanville, Winemaker Thys Louw

Fairview Primo Pinotage 2016WO Paarl, Winemaker Anthony de Jager

Flagstone Writer’s Block Pinotage 2016WO Breedekloof (Somerset West cellar), Winemaker Gerhard Swart

Kaapzicht Steytler Pinotage 2015WO Bottelary-Stellenbosch, Winemaker Danie Steytler

Kaapzicht Pinotage 2016WO Bottelary-Stellenbosch, Winemaker Danie Steytler

Kanonkop Pinotage 2013WO Simonsberg-Stellenbosch, Winemaker Abrie Beeslaar

Kanonkop Pinotage 2015WO Simonsberg-Stellenbosch, Winemaker Abrie Beeslaar

KWV The Mentors Pinotage 2016WO Darling (Paarl cellar), Winemaker Izele van Blerk

Lanzerac Pionier Pinotage 2015WO Stellenbosch, Winemaker Wynand Lategan

Lyngrove Platinum Pinotage 2016WO Stellenbosch, Winemaker Danie van Tonder

Meerendal Heritage Block Single Vineyard Pinotage 2016WO Durbanville, Winemaker Liza Goodwin

Môreson The Widow Maker Pinotage 2015WO Stellenbosch (Franschhoek cellar), Winemaker Clayton Reabow

Môreson The Widow Maker Pinotage 2016WO Stellenbosch (Franschhoek cellar), Winemaker Clayton Reabow

Rijk’s Reserve Pinotage 2014WO Tulbagh, Winemaker Pierre Wahl

Wellington Wines Duke of Wellington Pinotage 2017WO Wellington, Winemaker Francois van Niekerk

From these will be chosen the Top 10 winners.

2018 saw a record number of 161 entries for the 22nd annual competition.  

The judges were 

• Neil Ellis (proprietor of Neil Ellis Wines) chair
• Nomonde Kubheka, wine educator 
• Francois Haasbrook, wine maker 
• Samarie Smith, wine writer  
• Francois Rautenbach, wine buyer for Singita Premier Wine Direct.

Seven wines in the Top 20 are from Stellenbosch cellars, with two of the others made in Franschhoek using grapes from Stellenbosch. Four  wineries each have  two wines in the 20: Diemersdal (Durbanville), Kaapzicht (Stellenbosch) Kanonkop (Stellenbosch) and Môreson (Franschhoek). 

The Top 10 winners will be announced on 15 August.

Also announced were the finalists for the Museum Class.

Museum Class Finalists

Grangehurst Pinotage 2008WO Stellenbosch, Winemaker Jeremy Walker

Kanonkop Pinotage 2006WO Simonsberg-Stellenbosch, Winemaker Abrie Beeslaar

Lord Neethling Pinotage 2003Neethlingshof, WO Stellenbosch, Winemaker De Wet Viljoen

Neil Ellis Vineyard Selection Pinotage 2008WO Stellenbosch, Winemaker Warren Ellis

Rijk’s Private Cellar Pinotage 2008WO Tulbagh, Winemaker Pierre Wahl

Pinotage and Ice Cream

"Wine experts will likely agree that pairing ice cream with wine is a challenge", says Mark DeWolf in Canada's Nova Scotia Halifax Herald. 

Courageously he goes ahead and finds Grinder Pinotage makes a match with chocolate ice cream. 

 Read his article here.

Wine in soup bottles (8)

Daily Telegraph Crossword 28,793 in Tuesday 16 July 2018 edition had this clue for 18 Down:

 

18 Wine in soup bottles (8)

The answer is, as you've already guessed

Clue: Wine in soup bottles (8 letters)
Soup = potage 
 'in' is bottled, or enclosed thus
Wine = Pinotage

Meerandal's Heritage Block First Certified Old Vine Pinotage

Meerendal Estate's Heritage Block was planted in 1955 and is one of the oldest Pinotage vineyards in South Africa, and thus the world.


Many wines claim on their label that they are made from 'old vines' or 'vielles vignes', but South Africa is the only country where a regulatory authority certifies such claims.

Members of the Old Vine Project (OVP) can  put a Certified Heritage Vineyards seal on bottles of wine made from vineyards of 35 years or older, together with the planting date. This is a guarantee to the consumer of authentic wines grown according to the OVP viticultural and winemaking guidelines.

Meerendals Old Heritage Block is the first Pinotage to carry the certification seal. 

See here for my visit to the Heritage Block.

RIP Paul Kemp - Loma Prieta

Paul Kemp, owner/winemaker of Loma Prieta winery perched on the hills above Santa Cruz, California, died at home on 1 July 2018  from complications following surgery.

 

Paul Kemp

Paul became enthused with Pinotage and bought fruit from Lodi and elsewhere in California and planted his own estate vineyard. 

His Pinotage was very much in demand in his tasting room –“People didn’t know the name of the grape,” he told me, “but when they taste the wine they love it.”

Paul started a Pinotage Wine Club, regularly supplying Pinotage to subscribers; it is the only wine club exclusively for Pinotage.

Such was the demand that he eventually grafted over his award winning Pinot Noir Estate vineyard to Pinotage.

 

Loma Prieta is North America’s largest producer of Pinotage, and in 2016 Paul created a sparkling white Pinotage, the world’s first.

Paul visited South Africa’s wineland’s in 2011 where he was hosted by The Pinotage Association. He reciprocated in 2013 when a group from the Pinotage Association visited California

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Paul leaves behind wife Amy and sons Logan, Axel and Brandon.

Paul Bruce Kemp

3 September 1945 – 1 July 2018

For my video of Paul, taken in 2011 see

http://www.pinotage.org/2011/08/paul-kemp-of-californias-loma-prieta.html

RIP - Dennis Horton

Dennis Horton, owner of Horton Vineyards in Virginia, died on 21 June.

He brought Pinotage and many different varieties to trial in Virginia, some have subsequently become mainstays for the State, including Viognier and Petite Manseng. He also re-introduced Virginia's Norton Seedling i.e. Norton to Virginia
See https://www.washingtonpost.com

I met Dennis at his winery in September 2008 researching for my Pinotage book. Dennis was a fount of viticultural knowledge, a wine enthusiast, an amusing raconteur and generous with his time

WoTM – Flagstone ‘Writer’s Block’ Pinotage 2014

WoTM – Flagstone ‘Writer’s Block’ Pinotage 2014

My Wine of the Month for June is Flagstone ‘Writer’s Block’ Pinotage 2014.

Viticulturist Anton Koos in the Silkbush Pinotage vineyard

This is sourced from Silkbush Vineyards in the Breede River that also supplies top of the range Time.Place.Manner. It was a Pinotage Top 10 winner in 2016.

And it was gorgeous, sophisticated with overtones of cedar wood shavings. It was  delicious with elegant restrained blackcurrant fruit flavours. Not overt but delicate and, unfortunately, it was my only bottle because I think it will have an interesting long life.

The back label suggests these food matches ‘braised Springbok fillet, spicy lamb stew, and seven Indian curries’.

Tantalisingly it doesn’t name the seven curries. So I think that seven has an extraneous ‘s’…..

 

The Pinotage block in Silkbush Vineyard

Flagstone's Pinotage (arrowed) is at the top of the vineyard

 

Pinotage Plantings - Dramatic Increase

Pinotage is the only red variety of South Africa's 10 most planted wine grapes to have increased over the past 10 years.

SA Wine Industry Information & Systems (SAWIS) reports the total area under Pinotage is now  6,979 ha, up from 6.5% to 7.4% of the total area under vines.

Domestic sales have increased to over 5 million litres, from 3 million litres at the turn of the century,  and exports since 2001 have gone from just over 8 million litres a year to close on 19 million litres.

Pinotage sales in South Africa’s two biggest export markets, the UK and Germany, have grown from 3.5m and 0.8m litres in 2001 to over 5m and 5.4m litres respectively, with 2017 sales to China and Russia (2.6m and 1.5m litres) now greater than Sweden, the USA, France and Denmark.

UK Plants Pinotage

Planting of the UK's first Pinotage will start today 21 June 2018 at  Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens.

 

Construction of the current Italianite style Leonardslee House (above) commenced in1853. Its 200 acres of gardens are listed Grade I in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.

The property is owned by British entrepreneur Penny Streeter who also owns Mannings Heath Golf Club and Vineyard in England and Benguela Estate in Bot River, South Africa.

The new 1 hectare Pinotage vineyard brings the total of vines under cultivation to 66,000 over 16 hectares at the two sites in Sussex.

South African winemaker Johann Fourie, who was Chief Winemaker at KWV, plans to produce 50,000 bottles of sparkling wine annually  from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier - and now Pinotage.

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Anura Pinotage Reserve 2016

I was taken with the Anura Pinotage Reserve 2016 that Emil Kanstinger was pouring at last months London Wine Fair.

Emil told me that it spent 18 months in 80% new and 20% second fill oak barrels, 75% French, 25% American.

It had a good red colour and was soft and ripely fruity; blackberry and plums, and there was a deliciously spicy uplift with a touch of Pinotage sweetness on the finish. Super wine.