A Pinotage epiphany

Previously a grape he’s gone to great lengths to avoid, Jonathan Ray is forced to admit a new-found fondness for South Africa’s Pinotage

I’VE always disliked Pinotage. I mean really, really, disliked it. It’s the only grape variety or wine that I’ve actively tried to avoid. Well, that and Vinho Verde, which I’ve never really “got”, either. Oh, hang on, I mustn’t forget Liebfraumilch and Blush Zinfandel, which I also won’t go near and nor should you.

Pinotage, a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault, is the signature grape variety of South Africa, of course, and notorious for smelling and tasting of burnt rubber. It’s pretty grim fare and, lush though I am, I prefer to get my alcoholic kicks some – pretty much any – other way.

But, lately, something rather strange has happened. Pinotage has had its wicked way with me and I now can’t get enough of it.

It all started with the great Anthony Hamilton Russell, whose Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays from the Hemel-en-aarde Valley, Walker Bay, are arguably the finest in all South Africa. They are famous for their style, elegance and panache. As is Hamilton Russell himself, now I come to think of it.

Anyway, on a recent visit to London, I joined AHR for a lunch he was hosting and after he’d wowed us with his aforementioned Pinots and Chards he whipped out some bottles of his newly-released 2015 Ashbourne. We lapped it up, draining our glasses, begging for more.

We loved the wine’s elegance, freshness, softness, ripeness, fruitiness and its savouriness. Crikey, we loved everything about it (even the bottle and label look gorgeous) and there was a collective crashing of jaws to the ground when Hamilton Russell triumphantly revealed that it was made from 100% Pinotage. If I’d had a hat, I’d have eaten it on the spot. Dammit, I’d have eaten your hat, too. It’s an astounding wine (and so it should be at £45 a pop, you might say) and I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that it’s made entirely from Pinotage.

A few weeks later, I was invited to meet the fabulously engaging Tariro Masayiti, South Africa’s leading black winemaker, formerly of the country’s largest wine producer, Nederburg, and now of Springfontein in Stanford, Walker Bay. Masayiti started by handing me a glass of his 2012 Springfontein Terroir Selection Pinotage (which, FYI, he likes to serve lightly chilled). Where once I would have given anything claiming to be a Pinotage a wide berth, this time I was at least ready to give it a cautious sniff.

There was no hint of rubber, burnt or otherwise, on the nose. Instead, there was lush, ripe, briary fruit, cherries and herbs. It simply begged me to drink it. And on the palate there was more of the same, with an added softness and a freshness I’ve never, ever associated with the grape. It was all I could do not to down the glass in one. It was absolutely first rate and just so, well, damn drinkable. Masayiti couldn’t stop laughing and I couldn’t stop drinking.

Masayiti is as entertaining and engaging as his wines are delicious and quirky and the hours slipped away in jolly fashion. By the time we reached his Whole Lotta Love (a blend of Pinotage, Syrah and Petit Verdot), Child in Time (Pinotage and Petit Verdot) and Dark Side of the Moon (a white wine made from a bonkers and hitherto unheard of blend of Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and – wait for it, yes – Pinotage) I was well away: three of my favourite albums from three of my favourite bands commemorated in three of my (new) favourite wines.

I now find myself completely in thrall to new-wave Pinotage. I’m a forgiving sort and happily forgive it its dire, rubbery incarnations of old and have made a mental note not to be so darn snooty about it in future. As I left Masayiti, I couldn’t stop grinning and, of course, I couldn’t stop humming the opening bars to Whole Lotta Love.

Since my epiphany, I’ve sought out other Pinotages, just to check my new-found fondness for it wasn’t an aberration. Well, blow me, it isn’t. Even at the cheap end of the scale on the supermarkets’ bottom shelves, where once lurked vile, singed rubber tyres and Wellingtons in liquid form, there now beam out at me some deliciously cherryripe, herbal wines of real exuberance. No, they’re not in the league of Ashbourne or Springfontein but nor are they such a price. They’re cheap and cheerful and just disarmingly drinkable (see Six of the Best).

I never thought I could come to terms with Pinotage but, goodness, I have. And just as I thought things couldn’t get any stranger I received an invitation to the planting of a new Pinotage vineyard. No, not in South Africa (more’s the pity) but here in England, not half an hour from my home in Brighton. Who the heck would have thunk it?

There was no hint of burnt rubber. Instead, lush, ripe, briary fruit, cherries and herbs