Winemakers have expunged the sins of the fathers as pinotage continues to evolve
Pinotage is probably the most controversial cultivar in SA. The mere mention of it provokes stronger reactions from wine enthusiasts than even the names of our more mendacious politicians. Most revile it because their opinions were formed in the distant past, or because they consider it witty and fashionable to make it the whipping boy of all that was bad about Cape wine.
Those with long memories (and no current tasting experience) at least have a shadow of history on their side. Many pinotages bottled before the 1990s had a distinct “varnish” or acetone note; several made in the early 2000s released a “burnt rubber” pong — no doubt the result of poor cellar practices.
You would be hard-pressed to name one faulty pinotage produced in the past five years. Years of carping and pillorying have had their effect: anyone who makes pinotage now aims for squeakier-than-squeakyclean wines. Holding the current pinotage industry responsible for the faults of the fathers (or grandfathers) would be a little like berating modern bordeaux producers for the thin, weedy and dilute wines typical of the University 1960s and ’1970s. s first professor of Pinotage was one of several crossings made by Stellenbosch viticulture, Abraham Perold, in the 1920s. Its parentage was pinot noir and cinsaut known locally as hermitage — hence its name. For many purists it was doomed to be a mongrel until DNA testing in the past few decades proved that most socalled noble varieties were crossbreeds as well. Cabernet sauvignon, for example, is a natural crossing of cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc, and is no more ancient than our wine industry. It could never have been on 17th century Cape governor Simon van der Stel’s planting list.
No-one much cared about Perold’s creation, least of all its creator, who left it in the garden of his old home when he moved to another one. But by a series of coincidences the young plants were saved, first by the timely intervention of Charles Niehaus, who happened to be walking past the site just as gardeners sent to tidy up the overgrown property were about to remove the vines, and then by Perold’s successor, CJ Theron.
Wine produced from vineyards established in the 1940s landed up in the bulk end of the industry. The late Piet Venter of Distillers said it was used for “dop” wine. However, one day he was inspired by a sample and became something of a pinotage evangelist. By the 1950s there were vineyards at Kanonkop, Bellevue and Meerendal. Some of these plantings — 60 plus years old — remain on all three sites.
The 1959 vintage produced on the Morkel family estate Bellevue was judged the best wine at the Young Wine Show that year and was acquired by Lanzerac, who released it in 1961 to wide acclaim. This was the first commercial bottling of pinotage and it was an extraordinary wine. I last sampled it more than 30 years ago when I included a bottle in a line-up of truly fabulous burgundies. All the wines were tasted blind, and no-one thought it out of place. Two years later Kanonkop’s entry at the Young Wine Show also bagged the General Smuts Trophy (its highest accolade), proving that the 1959 result was no fluke.
The Morkel family still owns and farms Bellevue and now offers a reserve wine selection in the range. The line-up I tasted recently comprises a 2016 pinotage, a 2018 cabernet, a 2018 bordeaux blend (Tumara) and a 2019 chardonnay.
The pinotage pretty much stole the show. It was the finest of all the wines, as much in the sense that it was pure and intense, as well as complete and refined. Like the 1959 Lanzerac that came from Bellevue, it is quite burgundian, more pinot than cinsaut, more red fruit than tannin. I would happily have chosen the chardonnay for the curtain-raiser: the pinotage, however, was the main game, and also the afterparty.