Pinotage

Producing both full-bodied and easy-drinking reds, South Africaʼs proud creation soon turns 100

THE GRAPE

A crossing of pinot noir and cinsault – the latter traditionally called hermitage by South Africans – pinotage was created in 1924 by Abraham Izak Perold, the fi rst professor of viticulture at Stellenbosch University. The grape didn’t win favour with wine lovers, however, until the Eighties, but today pinotage is celebrated on the Cape with the same enthusiastic local pride as zinfandel in California. It is bottled as a single varietal or in Bordeaux-style ‘Cape blends’.

THE TASTE

Turn-of-the-century pinotage gained a love-it-or-hate-it reputation for full-bodied wines with intense flavours of roasted coffee beans, spice and dark chocolate. Those heavyweight examples still exist (especially when oak-aged) but contemporary pinotage is just as likely to be a mediumbodied and fruit-driven easy-drinker, with juicy blackberries, raspberries and plums to the fore.

THE PAIRINGS

Young pinotage can be chilled like Beaujolais and served with seared tuna or rare fi llet steak; room-temperature wines go well with light red meats such as roast duck or leg of lamb. Richer coffee-and-cocoa pinotages need an equally rich sauce: the likes of beef bourguignon, moussaka or venison stew.

THE VINES
Pinotage is South Africa’s third most-planted red grape and
occupies around 7 per cent of the country’s vineyard area. The
vines are often trained through use of untrellised bush-vine
viticulture, which protects the early-ripening grape from summer
heat. Stellenbosch, outside Cape Town, is the original home of
pinotage and the oldest vines; a little further east, the winelands
of Paarl include the spectacular landscapes of Franschhoek.