Yngvild Steytler talks about Kaapzicht Pinotage - video

It is always a pleasure to meet the tireless and irrepressible Yngvild Steytler and taste her impressive Pinotages.

Gary Vaynerchuck's Pinotage

Gary Vaynerchuck likes Pinotage. In his latest video tasting he opens 2009 Diemersdal Pinotage and 2007 Chamonix Greywacke Pinotage, rating them 88+ and 89+ points.

Some interesting comments and individualistic tasting descriptors!

See Gary here

.

PINOTAGE book now in iBookstore

PINOTAGE: Behind the Legends of South Africa's Own Wine is now available from Apple's iBookstore as an iBook for the iPad and iPhone.

This joins the Kindle version and traditional original paperback in making the book available on a wide range of platforms.


Apple - http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/pinotage/id442165834​

Kindle* at Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004GXB3TO

Kindle* at Amazon.co.uk - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004GXB3TO

Paperback at Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0956152309

Paperback at Amazon.co.uk - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0956152309


For signed & dedicated copies buy directly from me using the links to the right.

In South Africa the paperback is on sale in the Delheim winery giftshop, Kanonkop Estate's tasting room and Book Cottage in Hermanus.

*also readable on Android, BlackBerry, PC, Mac, iPhone, and iPad using the free Kindle App.

Escapades Pinotage - Video

Escapades is another label new to me. A partnership from Greece have bought a small farm in the Bottelary Hills and constructed a winery to make 70,000 bottles of four premium Estate grown varietal wines.

I met Stelios Samaras at the London International Wine Fair who told me that the Escapade winery had been set up by winemakers Evangelos Gerovassiliou and Vassilis Tsaktsarlis with marketeer Takis Soldatos, whose Mare Magnum company makes wine in Italy and six other countries.

Escapades has a striking bottle with its gold bands and this is the first Pinotage that I know that has been made by a Greek winemaker






Maceration and fermentation was in stainless steel tanks for 10 days at a relatively low temperature ranging from 20-25°C. After malolactic fermentation the wine was matured for 12 months in 100% new French Allier oak barrels before bottling and undergoing bottle aging.

The 2008 Escapades Pinotage is good example of the variety with some lush ripe fruits and it is pleasant drinking but I thought the pricing – not finalised but they expect it to retail northwards of £25 - to be rather ambitious for the first vintage from a new label.

.

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!



.

Vino Con Brio Sold

Vino Con Brio winery in Lodi is closing on 5 June and the property has been sold on the retirement of the owners, Mike and Renae Matson.

Vino Con Brio has the largest Pinotage plantings in America. They make their own Pinotage, which I have tasted and its a good clean fruit forward modern wine, and they sell grapes to a number of other wineries who want to make Pinotage.

This follows the sudden sale in March of New Zealand’s Muddy Water winery to neighbouring Waipara producer, Greystone. Muddy Water made one of my favourite NZ Pinotages, a powerful ‘no prisoners’ taken statement wine. Winemaker Belinda Gould, Muddy Hill’s winemaker of eleven years lost her job.

New Zealand journalist Sue Courtney called the Muddy Water 2009 Pinotage “voluptuous” and that it was a wine that “totally seduces the senses in every way - a wine that lovers of full-bodied reds will find hard to resist.” Sue is doubtful that Greystone will continue with making Pinotage.

Sad news when two top non-South African Pinotage wineries close in few months of each other.

007 Drinks Three Cape Ladies Pinotage Blend

Carte Blanche, the new James Bond novel written by Jeffrey Deaver, has James Bond choosing Warwick’s ‘Three Cape Ladies’ Cape Blend to accompanyhis seduction of Felicity Willing.

“ ...vintage Three Cape Ladies, a red blend from Muldersvlei in the Cape. Bond knew its reputation. He took out the cork and poured. They sat on the sofa and sipped. “Wonderful” he said.”

Three Cape Ladies is a delicious Cape Blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage, Merlot and Shiraz.

Picture courtesy of Mike Ratcliffe's blog at blog.warwickwine.com

Neal Martin is 'Excited by Delicious old Pinotage'

Some interesting comments about Pinotage from Neal Martin who was one of the international judges at this year’s Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show. Neal Martin is a Bordeaux expert and one of Robert Parker’s team. This was his first visit to South Africa.

When asked about Pinotage Neal said

“South Africans love Pinotage like English love fish and chips and we know that fish and chips is never going to be the top sashimi in Japan but we still love it and we’re still proud of it and we’ll always keep eating it.

Just like Pinotage maybe it’s never going to be a Chateau Latour, but certainly there is a definite improvement which is good to see and it’s just a case of tackling the stigma that surrounds Pinotage and that is a case of going to the producer who aren’t making good Pinotage, giving them a slap on the wrist and telling them to sort it out.”

and

“I have to say when we had the ’61 Pinotage it completely blew me away. It was as exciting as any extremely expensive wine I’ve had because it completely changed my perception and opened my mind.

The month before I’d tasted half a dozen ’61 Bordeaux and it was just as enjoyable, if not more so than those. We had a half bottle of ’59 Zonnebloem.

One of the things that was interesting was that a couple of people said where did we lose our way. If we can make that in ’61 why are we getting such bad press now, which I thought was really interesting.

The winemakers were asking themselves how does that Pinotage age for 50 years and still taste so fresh. It was delicious.”

Results of the competition will be published on 1 June 2011

Source: Judges feedback published in Wine magazine online 25 May 2011


.

Koopmanskloof Koffeeklip Pinotage 2010 - Video

Koopmanskloof is a winery new to me. Anriënka (call me Anna) Vlok told me it is in the Bottellary Hills where the soil type is a shale known as Koffieklip which proved to be a convenient name for their new coffee toned Pinotage.

Anna shows us a piece of Koffieklip as she tells us about the Koopmanskloof Koffeeklip 2010 Pinotage
.

I thought the coffee tones were very muted in this tank sample and I wouldn't have identified this as a 'coffee style' Pinotage if it wasn't for the name. It's a pleasant modern berry fruited wine with - yes - maybe some coffee lurking in the background, but this is a sample and it will be interesting to taste the finished wine.

The bottle in the film has a temporary label but the actual - rather attractive - label is shown below.

Rijks Pinotage – The Pope of Wines - Video

I noticed a new wine with an oak coloured label on Rijk's stand at this year’s London International Wine Fair: Rijk’s Touch of Oak Pinotage.

Winemaker Pierre Wahl was happy to tell us about this addition to Rijks range of Pinotage wines.




If found the wine pleasantly fruit forward with the oak well hidden and was surprised when Pierre said it had spent 14 months in oak, but old barrels. That’s how oak should be, supportive but not overt.

I think Touch of Oak Pinotage is a wine made for enjoying now but the standard Rijk’s Pinotage ages well. Checking my records I find I have been drinking Rijk’s 4 – 6 years after vintage and they have been perfect -- but I’ve none left now.

Pierre calls his Pinotage the Pope of wines, because it converts all who taste it :)

Aaldering Pinotage at LIWF

Hit of this years London International Wine Fair, which ended yesterday, was the new Wines of South Africa (WoSA) stand.

In a major break from previous years wines were available in a welcoming self-serve format. Instead of individual winery stands each with a pourer behind the counter, visitors were invited to ‘help themselves’ from a large number of themed circular pods.



Playing on WoSA’s long running slogan Variety is in our Nature was a stand invoking a sideshow tent at a travelling circus.

Colourful pods had headings including Cheerful Chenins, Wonderful Wellington, Splendid Swartland and Stars of Tomorrow. At the stand’s corners were towers of clean glasses topped by bottles of mineral water with an invitation to ‘help yourself’.

Bottles on pods nestled in individual holders and underneath each were containers of business card with wine and contact details.

I headed to the Popular Pinotage pod where I tasted the wines in turn. The first that made an impression was from Aaldering a name I had not previously encountered. It was a Stellenbosch WO from the 2007 vintage – the oldest wine on the stand -- and its red colour was getting a brownish tinge. There were mulberry fruits and a creamy almond nuttiness on the palate with a spicy finish.

By chance I met Janine Smink who is the Global Marketing & Sales Manager for the brand and she introduced me to owner Fons Aaldering, a Dutch business man who in 2004 bought the Devon Valley property previously owned by Hidden Valley winery.


Janine said that the Pinotage vines for their 2007 Pinotage were 15 years old and that Aaldering keep back their wines until they are mature before they are released. Currently sales are mostly to restaurants in Netherlands and they are looking for distribution in England and elsewhere.

...


For more about WoSA's stand at LIWF see
www.wine.co.za/news/news.aspx?NEWSID=17782


.

On the Pinotage bandwagon

My good friend Sue Courtney in New Zealand is

"on the pinotage bandwagon once again and the reason why is because it makes terrific wine. Proof is in two recent Wines of the Week – Kidnapper Cliffs Hawkes Bay Pinotage 2009 two weeks ago, and this week Karikari Estate Northland Pinotage 2008.

Don't like Pinotage? Wonder what I'm on about. Well, have you ever tasted Pinotage? Or if so, when did you last actually taste one without any preconceived notions in your mind? Because if you have preconceived notions you are living in the past? It's 2011, not 1967."

Read the rest of Sue's report on her always interesting Wine of the Week blog here.

Mochatage Pinotage 2009

Seems every month a new coffee ’n’ chocolate Pinotage is added to the pack. When supermarkets get their own label version then you know it is entering the mainstream.

Mochatage is Marks & Spencer’s take on the category and the front label leaves no room for doubt about its taste and how that is achieved.

And it’s pretty good, not overpowering although distinctly coffee-ish, but there’s also some silky ripe berry fruit flavours underneath. I could face a second glass of this and I think it’ll please shoppers pining for the loss of Diemersfontein’s original from Waitrose’s shelves.

The wine is made by Thys Loubser at KWV: is it their Café Culture under a different label? Anyway, £6.99 at M&S in a screwcap.

Good back label, too.

Bellingham 'Bernard Series' Pinotage 2009

The Bernard Series is named after Bellingham’s original winemaker Bernard Podlashuk who was one of the innovating pioneers of South African wine.

Dense purple colour, looking much younger than its 2005 vintage, In the mouth this is a ripe voluptuous black cherry flavoured wine, yet restrained like a Ruben’s beauty in an Agent Provocateur basque, full of promise but keeping some back.

Afterwards I read on the back label that the wine has been aged in oak barrels for 18 months and yet the wooding is not apparent – except maybe as that corset and from the sediment the wine is already throwing.

This is a beautiful clean modern wine, mouthfilling and rewarding and thoroughly recommended. From bush vines growing in Darling.


The website is www.bellinghamwines.com but it doesn't appear to have been updated since this time last year.

In UK this wine is available from Majestic at £14.99, currently reduced to a more reasonable £11.99. And while there, try a bottle of the excellent Bernard Series Old Vine Chenin Blanc.



.

Outstanding Pinotage from Bosman Family Vineyards (video)

I tasted some superb wines while in the Cape but the most memorable was Bosman Family Vineyards Pinotage 2009.

Bosman is the winemaking arm of the long established Lelienfontein vine nursery owned by eight generation Jannie Bosman. Their impressive property has terrific views over vineyards to surrounding mountains. Fields contain the bright green growth of new vines sticking out the ground pencil thin and a foot high, planted inches apart and destined to be plucked packed and despatched to the vineyard that ordered them 18 months in advance.


Petrus Bosman in a nursery vineyard



There are also established vineyards growing a range of varieties, some such as Primitivo (from Puglia) and Nero d'Avola (from Sicily) that are not found as varietals in South Africa, yet d’Avola grows well, says cellar master Petrus Bosman. Until recently grapes were sold on and vine rows leased to various wineries. Coloured tapes at the end of rows indicate ownership and there’s a monetary definition of terroir -- that rather nebulous concept of place. Here neighbouring rows can cost different rates to lease as one produces better grapes than another. Maybe it’s the position on the curve of a hill, one gets more sun another just below the brow is sheltered from wine. Terroir has a value set on it.

I was grateful to Petrus for showing me his foundation nursery where new vine varieties are produced. This is a large temperature controlled greenhouse entered via an airlock where foundation vines are grown hydroponically in sterile conditions. The vine grows up, supported by wires from the ceiling and is not pruned. Canes thrown out will be cut and in turn grown to produce virus free mother block vines. These will be planted in remote areas to in turn produce cuttings for vines for commercial use.


Foundation vines in the nursery greenhouse




Because wine drinkers are conservative, preferring to drink, in most cases, varieties grown for hundreds of years none in the greenhouse were meant for wine. Instead there were new varieties of table grapes, grapes destined for drying and American vines for rootstocks.

When the Bosman’s eventually grew tired of seeing other people win major prizes for wines made from Bosman’s grapes they decided to make some for themselves. They offered the position of winemaker to Corlea Fourie. Corlea took time out from her busy schedule to pour the following Pinotages for me:

2010: This was still in barrel, French oak, some 500 litre capacity. Soft and fruity with underlying coffee, it’s a work in progress and will have more oak aging to further refine it.

2009: This had been bottled but was not yet labelled, undergoing bottle aging before release. On the nose it had a hint of coffee and in the mouth it was a sensation being big, round full and galumphing offering sweet ripe bramble berry fruits and with a racy exciting finish. Corlea said 2009 had been a late vintage and Petrus added that he grows Pinotage on a west facing slope to get the afternoon sun. He says Wellington is a superb location for Pinotage. This wine was aged 14 months in 225litre barriques, 60% French and 40% American oak. I was absolutely knocked out by this fantastic wine.

2008: This was a more subdued version of the 2009, drier and more tannic with a slight underlying coffee flavour. An excellent wine, but the 2009 had taken all my superlatives.

Vintage was underway and Corlea was in her working clothes but I managed to persuade her to tell us her thoughts on video about the 2009 Pinotage.




Many thanks to Corlea and Petrus.

See Corlea talking about her 2008 Pinotage here

There are a handful of wineries making Zinfandel but although Zin and Primitivo are the same I think there are distinct clonal differences between them; they have different sized berries and ripen at different time. Bosman's vine material was sourced from Puglia, Italy, the home of Primitivo. Bosman's list a 2007 Primitivo wine on their website

First Vintage for The Perold Vineyard

The Perold Vineyard which was planted in October 2008 is now bearing its first crop due for harvest in the next week or two. The crop will be small owing to the youth of the 1,000 Pinotage vines but it is hoped that one barrel of wine will be produced.



I received news of the vineyard planting as I was finalising my book and it made an appropriate Epilogue because one of the books themes was the lack of public recognition Perold received.

I had not seen the vineyard myself however, something I put right aided with directions from the ever helpful Pierre Loubser who has now retired as manager of the Pinotage Association.

The vineyard occupies a triangular shaped piece of land at the junction of two roads in Stellenbosch, near the university, in thegrounds of a historical buidling called Mosterdrift.


The land is owned by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study who are using the vineyard to research row positioning in relation to the sun. The vine rows are laid out like the ribs of a lady’s fan, radiating from a central point.


Inserting trellis poles and planting vines proved unexpectedly difficult as a considerable bed of large sandstone boulders were found just underneath the surface soil, and the photo’s show some that were uncovered. The vineyard is being farmed organically, indicated by the grass growing between rows.


The vineyard is clearly visible from the street, from where my photographs were taken through a fence, on the corner between Marais and Jonkershoek.

Freedom Hill

Freedom Hill is located south of Paarl on the R301 towards Franschhoek. I wanted to visit because I’d come across their name on the wrapper of Francois Naude’s 2009 Vin de Francois as supplying a barrel to that blend. Francois is a winemaker I greatly admire and he truly understands Pinotage and as he is making Pinotage for Freedom Hill then I really wanted to taste it.



Freedom Hill is on a hill with a building above mature vineyards that slope down to the road. Heavy bunches of tight small black berries hanging from vines lined the access road. Wine is not made on the premises; grapes are taken to Stellenbosch Hills winery for processing.



We were warmly greeted by Ryan Brendenkamp, co-owner of Freedom Hill restaurant, who showed us to the tasting room to another friendly welcome.


From the veranda you can look back over the road to the Drakenstein Prison complex whose green roofs show above the trees. It was from here, when it was named Victor Verster Prison, that Nelson Mandela was released and took his first free steps. And that event inspired the name on the labels.

It was a hot day, we’d waited 20 minutes at road works on the R301 so started our tasting with a crisp lively Sauvignon Blanc.

The vineyards below grow four red cultivars: Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot (which they sell) and Pinotage. I’d come for the latter. There were two Cape Blends, (2006 Freedom Hill 35% CS, 34% Ptage, 31% Shz & 2008 Freedom Walk 42% CS, 29% Ptage, 29% Shz)on offer and which I was keen to taste since I am looking for a Cape Blend to present at a tasting when I return home in a few weeks, and one Pinotage.

Unfortunately all three reds were warm, tired, dull and lifeless. There were signs there once had been some rich fruit after one got past the flat beginning. Then I saw, after pouring, all three bottles being vigorously pumped with those so-called vacuum wine preservers (which have a reputation for flavour-scalping)and on asking learned that the bottles had been open for three days.

The tasting room manager then did offer to open a new bottle but I’d lost heart. I bought a bottle of the Sauvignon Blanc and Pinotage which I opened the following evening after slightly chilling it.



It was a different wine from the corpse in the tasting room. There were fresh chunky fruits and it was big, rather rough around the edges and rustic in style. Enjoyable, but not the elegant sophisticated complex masterpiece that is Francois Naude’s trademark and which I’d hoped for. Then I noted this was the 2008 vintage, the previous vintage to the one Francois had use a barrel of for Vin de Francois 2009.

Gold for Loma Prieta Pinotage 09

Loma Prieta Winery, a boutique winery in California's Santa Cruz Mountains mountains email to share the news that their Loma Prieta 'Amorosa Vineyard' 2009 Pinotage, has won a Gold medal at the US International Winemaker Challenge competition.

Loma Prieta are sourcing fruit from Vino Con Brio's Amorosa Vineyard in Lodi while their own Pinotage plantings growto maturity.

Congrats to all!

Picnic at Warwick Estate

To Warwick Estate on the R44 north of Stellenbosch towards Paarl. This time last year they had builders constructing a new tasting facility and now it is complete. From the noise, dust and bulldozers then I had expected wholesale destruction and rebuilding, but that has not happened.

The old historic barrel cellar has been most sympathetically modified to include a delicatessen and much expanded tasting room displaying Warwick’s current and library wines for sale.

The wooden deck I remember from my first visit in 1996 is still there, overlooking the lake and there is a new open area shaded by trees under which tables and chairs are dotted.

Near the lake are shelters woven from branches in which you can picnic with foods from the delicatessen and fresh baked ciabiatta bread. A cleverly designed cardboard box contains a cold meal for two: open it to find small jars of chutney, dips, hummus, couscous, salmon smoked on the farm over wine barrels, charcouterie, cheeses and more and to finish off there’s incredible brownies and a bag of Maynards Wine Gums to take away.

But what about the wines? Warwick are known for their ‘Old Bush Vine’ Pinotage and the latest vintage release, 2009, is on track to be one of the best. Deep plummy yummy fruits on the front are followed by rather firm tannins on the finish. The wine spent 14 months in second and third fill 225L barriques and I think it needs a little more time in bottle for the fruit and tannins to meld.


To my surprise while I was in the tasting room a party from The Circle of Wine Writers arrived for an invited tour and tasting. Many were friends with whom I had visited other wine regions and they insisted I join them for a tour of the vineyards in Warwick’s safari truck and Managing Director and co-owner Mike Ratcliffe kindly invited me to picnic with them afterwards.

Mike's new intensely planted trellised Pinotage vineyard is now coming on stream and he remarks that the ‘Old Bush Vine’ labelling is now more of a brand name because grapes from trellised vines were also used. Production has increased to meet growing demand. Mike revealed that some Pinotage grapes had been partially dried and blended in to give added complexity and that this year he was experimenting with making an Amarone style Pinotage. But he said that he was always experimenting and admitted most didn’t work out the way he hoped.

I also tasted Warwick’s ‘Three Cape Ladies’ 2007 Cape Blend. I had enjoyed this a few days previously at a braai with friends. Originally a blend of three varieties, this vintage contains a fourth — a dash of Merlot. The other three are Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage and Shiraz. It is a popular and classy wine, like good Bordeaux with a richness and sweetness you don’t find in claret.

Mike mused if the name required him to use just three varieties or whether his mission was to make the best wine he could for that vintage and he felt that if a splash of Merlot (he thought maybe 5%) improved it, he should go ahead. Mike said he was going to increase the percentage of Pinotage from next year now that he had more producing vines.

Mike was in a philosophical mood. He posed a question about whether old vines produced better wines than young vines that started a long discussion among the wine writers. But he soon was back to business when viticulturist Ronald Spies, who’d walked us through the vineyards, arrived with bunches of Pinotage grapes. They tasted so ripe and sweet, but Mike detected unripe stalks and said he’d instruct that their imminent picking was delayed for another week.

Warwick are proud that their Bordeaux blend Trilogy has just been selected by The Wine Society for aging. Several thousand cases would be held back for some years until judged nicely mature for release; this was the first South African wine to be treated this way.

Cellar Door prices: Warwick ‘Old Bush Vine’ Pinotage 2009 costs 95R, Three Cape Ladies 2007 is 105R and Trilogy 2008 is 235R. Warwick Wine Family Club members get 20% discount.

Warwicks vineyards looking towards the Simonsberg mountains

Avoid Headaches, Drink Pinotage ?

Scotland’s Perthshire Advertiser is recommending readers to drink Pinotage at New Year celebrations to avoid getting a hangover.

“Each vineyard has its own method of fermenting their harvest, with producers introducing sulphates to the wine mix as a preservative. But sometimes levels can be too high, causing the dreaded hangover.

“Welgegund Pinotage from South Africa as an example of a wine that can help maintain a guilt-free diet, citing far fewer toxins in its content to pollute the human body than are contained in more commonly found brands.”

According to Russell Wallace of Excel Wines who markets Welgegund Pinotage, “mass producers need to add so much sulphate to their yield is because they use machinery to pick the fruit, and often rotten fruits slip through the quality control process. Additionally, sulphates rid the harvest of bacteria left behind from pests including wasps, lizards and birds.

“Smaller producers do all their harvesting by hand, so have a much better quality control procedure when it comes to picking only the best fruits, and do not require excessive amounts of sulphates to cleanse what’s going into the wine.”

I am all for people drinking Pinotage and I’m sure Welgegund make an excellent one, (which I have not yet encountered).

But the claims in the article are nonsense.

Most South Africa wines are made from handpicked grapes — especially Pinotage. There is an embarrassment of unemployed labour ready, able and willing to harvest grapes and many Pinotage vineyards are planted as bush-vines which can not be machine harvested.

There is no reason grapes that have been machine harvested to be inferior to hand harvested. In both cases it is the quality check on grapes arriving at the winery that matters. Increasingly farms are using sorting tables to hand select berries that go forward for wine making. A machine may pick rotten grapes, but then so may workers who are paid by the weight of the grapes they pick.

Good looking bunches of grapes are just as liable to have bacteria from insects lizards and birds.

But the real nonsense is equating sulphites with headaches. Many years of medical research has failed to find any link between the two.

The article alleges that large producers use more sulphites. However sulphite levels in wine are limited by law and few wines come close to them. The European Union limit for red wine is 160 mg/L. The largest producer of Pinotage is Beyerskloof who publish the scientific analysis of their wines on their website. Their standard, large volume Pinotage 2009 has just 41 mg/L Free SO2 and 87 mg/L Total SO2.

What gets you drunk and gives you a hangover is alcohol. Please enjoy Pinotage at New Year and anytime and avoid hangovers by drinking in moderation.