For your next bottle of wine, try a pinotage
What do you get when you cross pinot noir with Hermitage? Pinotage.
It’s not a joke — it’s what really happened in South Africa in 1925. A professor at Stellenbosch University n a med Abra h a m Pe ro l d came up with the idea to genetic ally cross the t wo grape varieties and create an entirely new one. It worked, and to this day, South Africa claims the grape as its own.
To be quite specifific, the cross was bet ween pinot noir and the red blending grape cinsault. But South Africans referred to cinsault as “Hermitage” back in professor Perold’s day, and that is why the new grape was dubbed pinotage. I think it was a good call because “pinsault” would have been a pretty lame word.
To say pinotage correctly, pronounce the fifinal syllable as if it were the fifirst word in Taj Mahal. Unlike that revered building in India, t hough, pi not age has i t s detractors. Some are right; not all bottles drink well. But there are perfectly good examples of pinotage mingling with the bad.
When pinotage is good, it can offffer a wild array of aromas and flflavors, from raspberry, strawberry and cherry to plum, vanilla and coffffffffffffee, with herbs, minerality, earth, spice, mushrooms, marshmallows and grill smoke also in the mix. Some pinotage bottlings send forth aggressive tannins, while others verge on silky. And colors range from deep crimson to see-your- fifingers- throughit pink-ish. (And we’re not even talking about pinotage rosé; we’re talking about the straight-up red stuffffffffffff.)
Prices range vastly too. This is not necessarily a bargain wine. But it is also not prohibitively expensive, even at the higher end of its price spectrum. Three of the best, most interesting bottles in a recent tasting retailed for about 40 each. That’s not cheap, but it’s also not out of the question, especially considering that the bottles would do fifine aging in your cellar for several years.
When you pull one out of storage (or open it three hours after you purchase it), drink it with grilled meats, lamb, venison, a hearty stew or burgers. South African pinotage can express itself slightly more Old World than New World in some cases, but there are plenty of others that offffer brighter New World fruit and freshness. The grape is grown and vinified in other parts of the world — from New Zealand to California to some degree — but South Africa is where winemakers know it best.
You could safely put pino- tage in the same category as some other wines that people reject wholesale (chardonnay and merlot spring to mind), instead of considering them bottle-by-bottle, glass-by-glass. So here’s what you do. Look past the reputation, put aside the prejudice, forget what you’ve heard about the funky pinotage aromas of yore, and explore a wine style from a faraway land. Track down some pinotage, assemble a group of loved ones (or liked ones), taste and discuss. You might be surprised.
Below are some notes on nine South African pinotage wines from a recent tasting. They’re listed in ascending order, according to price. Each is composed of 100 percent pinotage.
2012 Fairvalley Pinot a g e : F a i r T r a d e - c e r t i - fied grapes went into this wine, which was aged for six months in French and American oak. Smoky, spicy and earthy, this wine leaned more toward savory than fruity. It offffffffffffered a pleasant freshness, though, due to its bright acidit y. Plus it’s immensely affffordable. $11
2 0 1 5 Ke n Fo r r e s t e r Wines Petit Pinotage: Black cherries and a whiffff of smoke sum up this easy drinker from the Stellenbosch region. With no exposure to oak, the wine had a soft and round mouthfeel, and would be a nice match for foods with a bit of spice. $ 12
2014 Backsberg Pinotage: This winery celebrates its centennial this year, and this wine, made of grapes from both the Paarl and Wellington regions, offered a hint of strawberry along with damp earth, minerality and smoke. At 14 percent alcohol, it was among the more potent bottles. $16
2014 Lammershoek Winery LAM Pinotage: Looking at this one, you would swear that it’s pinot noir, not pinotage. But it is the latter. Light in color and alcohol (11.5 percent), this unfifiltered wine offffffffffffered notes of orange zest, cranberry, herbs and crushed rock, all leading to a clean fifinish. $16
2014 Warwick Estate Old Bush Vines Pinotage: This single-vineyard Stellenbosch bottling delivered smoke and cedar, red fruit, clove, vanilla and crushed rock. With bright acidity and 13.5 percent alcohol, the wine could age in the bottle for up to eight years. Pair it with stew or curry. $ 20
2013 Beaumont Pinotage: From the cooler Bot River region, this mediumbodied wine offffffffffffered bright cherry notes kissed by vanilla and leading to a refreshing, clean fifinish. Pinotage was the first st yle of wine this winery made two decades ago, and this one is worth a try. $33