Pinotage

The cliché of Pinotage being a real ‘Marmite’ wine is definitely starting to fade as more producers continue to craft high-quality wines. More than anything, thanks to wide-scale plantings and parcels of older vines, Pinotage wines exude a true sense of place, with the best examples grown on all three of South Africa’s main soil types; ancient sandstone, shale, and decomposed granite.

Pinotage, like Chardonnay, allows a winemaker to make their personal mark stylistically. But the variety’s true strengths and unique selling points include being able to make a host of dry red styles – wines with a lot of upfront juicy fruit that also possess excellent medium - to long-term ageing ability.

Decanter’s first Pinotage panel tasting was held back in 1999. With an impressive 142 entries on this occasion, our panel’s hopes were for a real diversity of styles and a vast improvement in quality. After two full days of tasting, Victoria Mason said her expectations were more than fulfilled. She felt that, from the light and subtle to the bold and the powerful, Pinotage was capable of creating delicious wines made in very different ways: ‘Picked early to ensure lower alcohol levels and superb freshness, or picked later at 14%-15% alcohol, Pinotage has the ability to carry both the ripeness and alcohol with harmony and balance on the palate with relative ease.’

Roger Jones flew the flag for the ‘crowdpleasers’, saying they ‘should not be dismissed for highlighting the chocolate and espresso fruit-bomb style that so many consumers continue to seek out and enjoy’.

Mason had this to add: ‘A thread that ran through almost all of the wines – and which we all commented on numerous times – was the refreshing acidity which brought balance to concentrated, sweet fruit and higher alcohol levels.’ Jones was also keen to point out the influence of regionality on the wines’ quality and style. While Swartland produced wines with ‘spice, texture and a dark bramble wildness’, he found Stellenbosch and the Coastal Region, including Elgin and Cape Agulhas, ‘delivered refined, elegant styles that were more gentle on the fruit’.

‘Pinotage has the ability to carry both ripeness and alcohol with harmony and balance’
—Victoria Mason

Mason agreed: ‘The alcohol levels were typically lower and the acidity almost bracing, which made for such drinkable, moreish wines – wines that closely resemble their Pinot Noir and Cinsault heritage and redefine the old-fashioned view of what Pinotage is.’

While the judges found a few wines overextracted and overblown, they were