PINOTAGE:Behind the Legends of South Africa's Own Wine

Announcing the first book about Pinotage!!

Pinotage is South Africa’s very own wine, but there has never been a book about it until the Pinotage Club's Peter F May from England decided to tell its story.

2009 is the 50th anniversary of the world’s first Pinotage wine and in PINOTAGE: Behind the Legends of South Africa’s Own Wine author Peter F May tells the story of this uniquely South African grape variety, its creator, Professor Abraham Perold and the people who grow and make Pinotage.

During researches in South Africa Peter F May was told information that differed from the standard definition of Pinotage in text books. Turning detective, May investigated various legends about Pinotage's parentage and origins.

“I felt like Sherlock Holmes,” he says, “as winemakers told me things in confidence that contradicted everything I'd read about Pinotage.”

Peter F May travelled to four continents to interview winemakers and winery owners for the book which details how Pinotage is grown, made and marketed. As well as covering growing, making and marketing Pinotage in South Africa, he provides a comprehensive review of Pinotage in other countries.

ABOUT THE BOOK

PINOTAGE: Behind the Legends of South Africa’s Own Wine tells of Peter F May's infatuation with the Pinotage variety and follows his investigations into its origins. After exhaustive investigations into various legends about the variety he identifies when and how it was created and first planted and he discovers the oldest living Pinotage vineyard.

The book contains a history of winemaking in South Africa and a biography of Pinotage's creator, Professor Abraham Izak Perold.

May investigates various legends about the variety including ones that say it has Shiraz or an American rootstock vine in it parentage and the reasons for Pinotage’s creation.

In the second part of the book May discusses growing, making and marketing Pinotage wines with case studies of several classic South African vineyards and wineries.

Various styles of Pinotage are discussed, the Cape Blend controversy is covered and criticisms of the variety are analysed.

In the third section of the book, author Peter F May takes a look at Pinotage in other countries. His travels take him from South Africa to California and Virginia, Canada, Israel and New Zealand.

This timely book is for anyone interested in wine and wine making, and those who want to know the full story about South Africa's wine gift to the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter is a wine writer, educator and author. He is a member of the prestigious Circle of Wine Writers. His first wine book Marilyn Merlot and the Naked Grape: Odd Wines from Around the World was published in summer 2006 by Quirk Books of Philadelphia, USA.

Peter F May first visited South Africa in 1996 and he has visited the Cape wine lands on average every year since, spending weeks visiting vineyards and wineries and talking with winemakers and winery owners.

In 1997 he founded The Pinotage Club - an international web-based fan club for wines made from the Pinotage variety. Peter was awarded Honorary Membership of the producers Pinotage Association in 2004 and was a judge at the annual Pinotage Top 10 Competition in 2004 and 2005.


PINOTAGE: Behind the Legends of South Africa’s Own Wine
by Peter F May

Published April 2009
£14.99
248 pages, 25 illustrations, comprehensive end-notes and index
Paperback: 15.59 cm x 23.39 cm, perfect binding, white interior paper (55# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (90# weight), full-colour exterior ink
ISBN: 978-0-9561523-0-5
Publisher: Inform and Enlighten, England

Read sample pages at http://www.pinotage.weebly.com/

AVAILABILITY

Book and Postage

UK £14.99EU - by Airmail £17.99Worldwide - by Airmail £19.99

Dedication Required

US Customers, use button below to pay in US Dollars. Signed book airmailed to you for just $31.25, cheaper than amazon.com!

Dedication Required

Signed and dedicated copies may be ordered by clicking on the above Paypal button or by emailing Peter F May at peter at pinotage dot org or from http://www.pinotage.weebly.com/

The book is available from online channels including stores.lulu.com/pinotage , Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk , Barnesandnoble.com and Borders.co.uk and can be ordered from your local bookshop. A

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Pinotage Blend Wins Trophy for South African Red Blend over £10 Trophy

Schalk (left) and Tiaan Burger

Welbedacht Hat Trick 2006 won the Trophy for Best South African Red Blend over £10 at the 2009 Decanter World Wine Awards in London.

Welbedacht Hat Trick 2006 is a Cape Blend of 50% Pinotage, 25% Syrah and 25% Merlot.

Schalk Burger Snr, owner of Welbedacht, is delighted with the result. “What makes this so special is that this category is hotly contested. Winning a Trophy Award in this category is an amazing achievement for us.”

Cellar Master Jacques Wentzel says 2006 is fast becoming a superb vintage for fruit flavours, which lie at the heart of the Welbedacht Hat Trick.

“The core of this blend has been the immense fruit focus which culminates in the Pinotage contributing fresh red berries and the more complex plum flavours. The Syrah adds the spice and floral flavours, while the Merlot rounds it off with the fullness that it adds to the final mouth feel,” he says. “These cultivars beautifully express the terroir of our estate and encapsulate our winemaking philosophy, namely to make wines that are varietal expressive. The quality of our blend is also helped by the fact that we built our cellar to suit our fruit.”

The name ‘Welbedacht’ means “well thought out” in Dutch - a fitting name for this increasingly prestigious wine farm where great care is taken to express each wine and cultivar’s unique character.

“As only traditional methods are used to make our wines, we believe that the 2006 Welbedacht Cape blend embodies all the attributes of a rare hat trick, and as such, a black label is awarded to it,” he concludes.

Congratulations to everyone at Welbedacht -- and to Pinotage for gaining both the red single varietal Trophy (see below) and for being the major part of the red Bldn Tropy.

Tony Laithwaite: Pinotage is a race horse worth backing

Tony Laithwaite owns the worlds largest specialist home delivery wine business. He started in 1969 loading his van with wines in Bordeaux and selling them back home in the UK. Now his company, Direct Wines, as well as selling wines under the Laithwaites trading name operates wine clubs for American Express, British Airways and The Sunday Times as well as several others, owns Averys of Bristol and Virgin Wines and runs the largest mail order wine business in the USA .

So when Tony Laithwaite talks about Pinotage it is worth listening. At the moment he is in South Africa where he enjoyed a braii and "most importantly, I rediscovered Pinotage."

In his blog yesterday he wrote :

"I have tasted a range of styles of Pinotage, each well made and enticing in their own way. From soft juicy, summer fruit bombs of the younger styles to rich, mocha tasting lightly oaked wines with a bit of age. I am loving them all!

Perhaps at last South Africa has cracked its red wines - will Pinotage do for South Africa what Malbec has done for Argentina? Only time will tell, but for me, this is a race horse worth backing."

Read his article in full here.

I look forward to seeing a larger range of Pinotages on Laithwaites list than the current pair, Stanford Hills Jacksons Pinotage 2006 and Drakenskloof Pinotage 2007 . Stanford Hills gain 4 stars in Platter 2008 but Drakenskloof is a name unknown to me.

Laithwaites likes to sell labels exclusive to themselves. It makes it impossible for consumers to compare prices. The winemaker is named as Frans Smit who is the cellarmaster at Spier. Spier make a range of 'own label' wines for UK supermarkets and it is likely this is something similar.



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Video: Yngvild Steytler on Winning Decanter's Trophy

Yngvild Steytler is the public face of Kaapzicht Estate and she travels the world marketing husband Danie's wines.

This week Yngvild has been very busy at the London International Wine Fair as the crowds flocked to her stand to taste Kaapzicht's Trophy winning Steytler Pinotage 2006.

Kaapzicht's Pinotage beat Shiraz, Cabernet, Merlot etc to the South African Red Single Varietal over £10 Trophy.

I managed to get Yngvild's reaction to their win. Her modest reaction was that it was a primarily a win for Pinotage and shows that Pinotage does deserve its place among the world's great wines and that there is a great future for all kinds of Pinotage from rosés and light bodied fruity wines to the full bodied oaked pinotages like Kaapzichts flagship Steytler.

I found this wine to be full of ripe fruit, pure and clean and approachable, its two years oak aging is very much in the background.

The wine retails in the UK for around £20 a bottle.

Pinotage Wins Trophy for South African Red Single Varietal over £10 Trophy

2006 Kaapzicht Estate Steytler Pinotage has won this years South African Red Single Varietal over £10 Trophy at the Decanter Wine Awards announced yesterday at the London International Wine Fair.

Congratulations to Danie Steytler and his team.

Proudly Pinotage at London Wine Fair

Winning Pinotages will be poured at the London International Wine Fair that starts tomorrow 12 May and runs for three days at the Excel exhibition complex on the banks of the Thames river in London's docklands.

The Pinotage Association are funding two stands: one will show all 10 winning wines from the 2008 Pinotage Top 10 Competition, the other will show a selection of Pinotages from new and small producers.

If you are coming to LIWF make a point at stopping at stands 4 and 20 on the Wines of South Africa island L50 in the centre of the hall.

Be seeing you ...

WINE Tastes Pinotage

WINE Magazine will be holding a Pinotage tasting in Cape Town on 23 June 2009 and in Johannesburg on 1 July 2009.

The wines shown at the seated tasting will be ten top-rated wines as reviewed in the June issue of WINE.

Details are

Cape Town, 23 June 2009, 18:15 for 18:30
Mount Nelson, Gardens

Johannesburg, 1 July 2009, 18:15 for 18:30
The Rosebank, Rosebank.

Tickets cost R120 per person and can be booked by calling 0860 100 205 or by sending an email to subs@ramsaymedia.co.za or book online at www.winemag.co.za

Four Paws Lands in UK

Four Paws Pinotage is now available in the UK. Four Paws is owned by Anne Jakubiec (pictured left) and the maiden 2006 vintage Pinotage shot the label to fame by achieving a 2007 Pinotage Top 10.

Trevor Mayor of Great Wine UK Ltd tells me that he has now received shipments from South Africa of that winning 2006 Pinotage.


The Pinotage is priced at 15.95 from http://www.greatwineonline.co.uk/







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Tasting Pinotage Firsts for the 50th Anniversary

2009 is not only the 350th anniversary of the first Cape Wine: it is also the 50th anniversary of the vintage of the first commercial Pinotage varietal wine.

That was grown and made by PK Morkel of Bellevue and marketed by Stellenbosch Farmer's Winery under their Lanzerac brand name.

So it is appropriate that in this 50th anniversary year I have been asked to present a tasting on of Pinotages on Tuesday to 60 members of Brentwood Wine Appreciation Society, in Brentwood, Essex, near London.

It has taken a lot of thought and effort to obtain eight representative wines. I decided on a theme of 'firsts' and these are the eight wines I will be showing on Tuesday:


Delheim Rosé
Pinotage 2008
(Delheim were the 1st winery to make a rosé Pinotage in 1976

Simonsig
Kaapse Vonkel Brut Rose
Méthode Cap Classique 2006
(Simonsig were the 1st South African winery to make a Methode Champenoise sparkler in 1971)


Mellasat
ENIGMA
Blanc de Noirs Pinotage 2008(
this is the 1st commercial release of a white Pinotage)

Warwick Estate
Three Cape Ladies
Cape Blend 2005
(Warwick's 3 Cape Ladies was the 1st cape blend in Wine Spectator’s World’s Top 100 Wines)

Diemersfontein
Pinotage 2008
(Diemersfontein pioneered the amazing 'coffee & chocolate style' of Pinotage and it was voted 1st choice of readers of The Cape Times which proclaimed it “the Peoples’ Pinotage”)

Bellevue Estate
Houdamond
Pinotage 2007
(Bellevue grew and made the world’s 1st varietal Pinotage in 1959 )
This is an exclusive special bottling for Marks & Spencer.

Beyerskloof
Reserve
Pinotage 2006
(1st winery to have 2 wines, this is one of them, in Pinotage 10 Competition)

Kanonkop Estate
Pinotage 2004
(Kanonkop is South Africa’s ‘1st Growth’ says WINE Magazine)

Problem, as always, is sourcing the wines I wanted. I ordered some Reyneke, which is the only biodynanically grown Pinotage but then the supplier cancelled the order as they had only one bottle in stock.

There are no Pinotages from other countries because I was unable to find any available in the UK and didn't have enough in my own cellar.

A good time will be had by all... :)

Pinotage Tops Chinese Challenge

Pinotage was voted the favourite red wine of Chinese consumers at the Grape Wall Challenge last Friday in Beijing, China when Foot of Africa Pinotage 2006, made by Kleine Zalze in Stellenbosch, won first place

Judges tasted 23 red wines that retail in China for under 100 Renminbi (about £10.10 or $15USD or 140 ZAR)

The challenge aimed to find good but affordable wines and to involve consumers in the process. Judging was done by teams of 6 consumers and 6 experts. The consumers team were asked to rate each wine as 'love it', 'like it', 'dislike it' or 'hate it'. The experts panel included wine makers and lecturers who used the 20 point scale to score wines. The experts gave 9th place to the Pinotage, but when the two teams scores were combined Foot of Africa Pinotage was in third place.

Read the full report here. Thanks to Jim Boyce of grapewallofchina.com who organised the tasting for permission to use these photographs.





Foot of Africa Pinotage can be seen below, third from the right in the front row




Photographs ©Copyright Jim Boyce grapewallofchina.com

"Pinotage has undergone a change" -- Grape

Pinotage expert Angela Lloyd has been tasting 96 varietal and 24 Pinotage blends for WINE magazine and she’s blogged some interesting thoughts in Grape.co.za on where Pinotage is today.

She says

“That Pinotage has undergone a change, there is no doubt. Our line up clearly showed that aggressive acetone character and those thin, rough tannins are just about a thing of the past. Today, the profile encountered may feature generous black cherry, summer pudding or raspberry aromas, rich, silky flesh with refreshing acid and those troublesome tannins, taut but well-manicured. Oaking too is more often complementary and harmonious.”

She expects WINE will award 2 and 3 star ratings to these “joyful, approachable wines with their juicy red fruit and, hopefully pocket-pleasing prices” which will give no “indication of just how enjoyable they are to drink now.”

She also has some words for coffee Pinotages which she calls a “cynical recipe” for “coffee masquerading as wine”.


Read the whole article at Grape.co.za

Reyneke's Pinotage is "Another classic"

"I also hugely enjoyed Johan Reyneke’s superb Pinotage 2005 (£12.50), again biodynamic, a deep ruby red from Stellenbosch in South Africa, with a gorgeous smell of creamy black cherries and plums, chocolate and spice and then backed up by silky smooth tannins. Another classic."

-- Helen Savage, writing about ethical trading in Newcastle's The Journal on 13 March 2009 .

I am delighted to learn that Reyneke's Pinotage is available in the UK. Johan Reyneke, pictured above, was the first farmer in South Africa to convert to Biodynamism and it was his Pinotage vineyard that was the first. The results from that trial were so impressive that he turned went competely over to biodynamic farming.

Almost the entire entire production from that small Pinotage vineyard has been earmarked by US customers, so much so that Johan was hard pressed to find one bottle for me when I visited him.

UPDATE:
But the 2005 vintage is [UPDATE = NO LONGER] available from Ethical Superstore at http://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/products/ethical-fine-wines/reyneke-pinotage-stellenbosch-south-africa/ at £12.50 a bottle.

Despite the wine still being listed as "In Stock. Available for despatch tomorrow" and accepting an order from me for 6 bottles, it seems they have only one bottle in stock A brief phone message was left with someone else in my house that "the Stellenbosch wine" is unavailable. They could not tell the name of the wine and since I have a number of wines on order it wasn't until a got an abrupt email from them saying "Order Status:Cancelled" that I knew. There was no apology, no nothing, just "Order Status:Cancelled".

Ethical Superstore was set up in 2006 by Vic Morgan and Andy Redfern with the manifesto help the ethical consumer “Buy What You Believe”.

M'Hudi on TV

A three part series on wine came to an end last night with the final programme titled ‘The Future’ focusing on two South African wine brands, M’Hudi and Solms-Delta.

The programme irritated me from the start because they mispronounced Pinotage and called it “a hybrid varietal that remains stubbornly unpopular abroad”. The programme tried to create suspense with the annual visit of Marks & Spencer’s wine-buyers and whether would buy M’Hudi’s Pinotage. M&S already stock the other two M’Hudi wines, Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot and the chances of taking a third, bearing in mind another wine in M&S’s portfolio would have to be delisted, are almost non-existent. But there were no surprises since we already know that M’Hudi’ s Pinotage is not in M&S. There was no discussion of why no other buyers than M&S was considered.

Another focus was on the International Wine Challenge and whether M’Hudi Pinotage and Solms-Delta’s new sweet wine would get awards. Interestingly the programme showed this new semi-sparkling sweet red low alcohol (9%abv) Shiraz being fermented in barriques, which seems most unlikely for a cheap mass market wine

Initially the two farmers seemed to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. M’Hudi is the first black owned vineyard, bought by the Rangaka family who live in a ramshackle tin-roofed cottage among broken machinery and straggling bush vines while Solms Delta has been in the same family for generations who live in a grand Cape Dutch mansion among a landscaped garden and neat trellised vines.

The programme brought out a number of similarities and parallels between the two

• The Rangaka’s of Mhudi are new owners, having bought their farm in 2003
  
• Solms-Delta was inherited by Mark Solms and their first wine was bottled in 2004
  
  
• Oupa Rangaka was a university professor and dean
  
• Mark Solms is a brain specialist and translator of the works of Sigmund Freud
  
  
• M’Hudi has black owners whose wines are marketed at sophisticated middle class wine drinkers via Marks & Spencer in Britain
  
• Solms-Delta has white owners who are producing sweet fizzy wine for non-wine drinking black people in Africa
  
  
• M’Hudi is bankrolled by government grants and loans
  
• Solms-Delta is bankrolled by partner Richard Astor

At the IWC M'Hudi Pinotage got a Bronze medal whiled Solms-Delta's lambrusco like wine failed to win anything.

Oupa Rangaka seemed a little restrained on the programme, but maybe there just wasn't enough time to show him in full speech mode!

The programme blurb says "via the struggles of these two remarkable men, wine becomes a prism through which to view the current state of the Rainbow Nation." Discuss.....


The programme will be repeated on Sunday 9 March at 19:00 on BBC4 and is available via the internet on BBC iPlayer for those in the UK or anyone who can trick the website that their IP address is in the UK. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j0g7v

Tasting Pinotage Blends in London

To London for the first time for more than four months for a tasting of Top End Blends organised by WoSA. What strikes me is just how expensive SA wines are getting. £36 for a Merlot blend? £17 for Nederburg's blend of eight white varieties, the sort of thing that Flagstone used to do in a £5 Noon Gun?

Several of the reds have a Pinotage element, but I’ll concentrate on those that have a least 30% Pinotage as per Cape Blend conventions and I’ll list them in descending order of Pinotage proportions.

Cloof Inkspot Vin Noir 2005, (Darling) 14.83%abv.

78% Pinotage, 12% Shiraz, 10% Cinsaut.

Quite edgy, soft talcum powder texture with dried plum and raisin flavours. £8.99

Middlevlei 2006 (Stellenbosch) Middlevlei pioneered this blend of equal shares of Pinotage and Merlot and 14%abv.

This has an attractive sweet nose and a soft classic taste. It is restrained, softly well balanced with sweet berry fruits and a touch of vanilla custard on the finish.. £9.99

Stellenzicht Rhapsody 2006 (Stellenbosch)

has equal shares of Pinotage and Shiraz. 15.28%abv.

Rhapsody is Guy Webber’s pride and joy but I don’t think this particular wine is showing well; it’s a bit rough and has a hot finish, not at all like previous examples. £24.50

Kaapzicht Steytler Vision 2005 (Stellenbosch).

50% Cabernet Sauvignon 40% Pinotage, 10% Merlot 15.1% abv.

Mouth filling well rounded sweet fruit over tannins. Surprising restrained Bordeaux like but with a really attractive spiciness and ripe fruit sweetness. £19.99

Lyngrove Shiraz Pinotage 2004, (Stellenbosch).

70% Shiraz, 30% Pinotage.
Really nicely balanced wine, a thoroughbred not showing its 14%abv. £7.99

Dekkers Valley Revelation 2004 (Paarl).

41% Shiraz, 32% Pinotage, 27% Cabernet Sauvignon. 14%abv

Warm fruit nose leads into a lovely plummy wine, really very enjoyable. £7

I rated Kaapzicht and Middlevlei the best of the bunch, but the discovery of the tasting was Dekkers Valley, second label Mellasat, which offered a really enjoyable drink at the lowest price point.

L'Avenir and Writers Block in Jukes' Top 50

Matthew Jukes just published Top 50 South African wines includes two Pinotages, Flagstone Writer's Block 2006 and L'Avenir Grand Vin 2006

Matthew is author of several wine books and wine correspondent for the UK's Daily Mail national newspaper.

Of the 2006 Flagstone Pinotage he says

The most expressive Writer's Block ever has me gushing thank goodness. Seamless, hedgerow and boot polish notes bombard your palate and there isn't a touch of unwanted earthiness in sight.

L'Avenir's premium Grand Vin 2006 elicits

With almost Barolo-like, enigmatic flair, this distinguished Pinotage stalks your taste buds one by one, converting every one in its path to its cause.

In the UK Writer's Block retails at £15 and the L'Avenir Grand Vin is an eye-watering £26.

The Top 50 is on Matthew's releaunched web-site at http://www.matthewjukes.com/?p=224 athough a coding error is preventing display at the time of writing (hint, use view source)

Winemaker Ben Dugdale talks about Pinotage (video)

Ben Dugdale is winemaker at Karikari Estate, New Zealand's most northerly. He showed me around the estate in December 2008 (see my report here) but I didn't have the bandwidth while travelling to upload this video of him in his Pinotage vineyard

In the video he talks about growing Pinotage and why he is planting some more. The berries are small and green because this was filmed in December. They'll be ready for harvesting soon.

Ben uses the following terms:

Veraison - that is when the grapes ripen and change colour to black

Brix - is a measurement of sugar in the grape. A finished wine will have an alcohol level a little over half the brix reading. So when Ben measures 24 brix thats teling him those grapes would produce 12.5-13% alcohol by volume.

Saam Pinotage for Red Nose Red

Red Nose Day is a major bi-annual fund raising event for Comic Relief in the UK. The red nose refers to a the bulbous scarlet facial appendage worn by clowns and was adopted as a symbol by the professional comedians who started Comic Relief in 1985.

The wine business has always been an active supporter, in the past running a parallel ‘wine relief’.

For 2009' two Red Nose wines have been launched, both sourced from South Africa’s Saam Mountain Vineyards near Paarl. Red Nose White is a Chenin Blanc and Red Nose Red is a Pinotage blended with some Shiraz (an ancient French cross between Dureza and Mondeuse blanche).

Red Nose Red Pinotage/Shiraz 2008 is a tremendously attractive wine with a scented nose, brimming with ripe loganberry fruit flavours, and an almost jammy sweetness.

Tasting notes for the wine from Jancis Robinson MW and Tim Atkins MW read "This hearty and full bodied red brims with goodwill, bramble perfume and raspberry fruit. Drink with friends and partner it with anything you feel like eating."

But I think my friend Andy Barrow over at Spittoon has really nailed it. Andy likens the wine to picking blackberries in hedgerows. I went blackberrying last summer and and he has it spot on.

The wine costs £4.99 in UK supermarkets of which £1 goes to Comic Relief. But don't think of this as a bargain basement £3.99 value wine. Importers Bibendum reckon that, without the donations of those involved in producing the wine it would be priced above £6. "SAAM, Erbin and Multiprint provided wines, capsules and labels respectively at cost, while JF Hillebrand, Quinn Glass and all of the retailers are working at reduced margins," they say.

At not extra cost, Red Nose wines come with an art work by Damien Hirst. The label is a Hirst work titled A Red Nose, being a raised shiny red circle on a dull matt grey background. The label on my wine easily peeled off, so get a frame and you can have a Hirst work on your wall. Much better than a pickled shark :)

Good wine, designer art and charity, all in one £4.99 bottle. Rush out and buy.

M'Hudi on BBC-tv

When I wrote last year (see here) about M’hudi wines and my chat with Oupa Rangaka, I mentioned that Oupa was being filmed by a television company.

Now the results are due to be shown on BBC-tv's digital channel BBC 4 in March in a three part series features different aspects of the wine business including London wine merchants Berry Bros and Rudd and Chateau Margaux.

The final programme, titled 'The Future', to be shown in March, travels to South Africa to talk to Oupa at M’Hudi and Mark Solms of Franschhoek winery Solm’s Delta .

Managing Director Malmsey Rangaka (left) & Oupa in their vineyard

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Inniskillin's Pinotage - heavy palate of red fruit

"You’ll be reading a fair bit about Pinot varieties over the next few weeks, as we get closer to wine fest time. First off the bat,Pinotage, a red wine grape originally bred in South Africa, where it is the signature variety.

Here in B.C., Inniskillin’s Discovery Series includes a slightly spicy Pinotage that boasts a heavy palate of red fruit, with a nose of cherry, raspberry and prune. A few layers of toasted vanilla lead the nose to a nice finish. Match with rich pastas, braised meats or savoury stews.

Anya Levykh writing in Vancouver's Metro News 22 January 2009, item titled The Many Sides of Pinot: Pinotage

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Such is fame ....

The Pinotage Club has been active on the web since 1997, and it comes near the top of any Google for Pinotage, so it was rather surprising to read in wine-writer Eric Asimov's New York Times of 20 January 2009 that I’ve yet to find a hard-core pinotage fan club.


Eric Asimov has just discovered South African wines and he's impressed with the Cabernet Sauvignons, but he thinks that increasingly its producers are focusing on cabernet sauvignon. Err?? Surely red-wise the new focus is Shiraz?

Eric says of the South African wines that their track record is slim. We don’t know yet how these wines will age, thus dismissing 350 years of continuous wine production.

Since he gets so much so wrong, how much reliance can be placed on his opinion of Pinotage as a distinctive wine that is made virtually nowhere else in the world, but almost nobody likes or wants that wine?

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