From Angela Lloyd:
While no one should doubt that many disagreeable pinotages do emerge from Cape cellars, there are equally miserable shirazes, cabernets - or any other variety or blend you might like to name. As I plough through my Platter tastings I'm coming across several impressive and delicious examples - Neil Ellis, Beaumont, Hidden Valley, Laibach and a new Arniston Bay Bush Vine Reserve are just a few; some enjoyable now, others needing the benefits of age.

The real burden that hangs around pinotage's neck is a lack of image. Marketing is more necessary for pinotage, as a local hero, than other, international varieties. This needs not only to be aimed at winelovers but also involve them. As far as my, admittedly Platter-addled brain can remember the only generic pinotage promotions are the Top Ten competition and the annual pinotage vintage tasting (to which media are invited, though the Pinotage Producers Association say it is really internally focused). Neither involve winelovers to the extent that they will think more positively about the grape. How about a pinotage week, where all producers offer older vintages as well as their current one for tasting to all visitors; pinotage dinners, matching different styles with different dishes and, to introduce a truly South African angle, partnering pinotage with a traditional braai; turning a negative into a positive, by encouraging winelovers to voice their thoughts on pinotage in the form of a limerick; or do a Stormhoek and get winelovers to blog their  experiences with a new pinotage they've  discovered and really enjoy, with a prize for the best description? There must be many other ideas to create a positive awareness and change those negative minds. The PPA, until now apparently resolutely sitting on its collective bum, and all pinotage producers need to see the opportunities staring them in their collective faces and act on them as they are in improving the wines themselves.

Then Dave Ingram won't need to introduce his discovery of the delights of older pinotage with the words: `I used to really enjoy pinotage, but then one day when I went into the cellar, I just could not force myself to take a pinotage. I would put my hand on a bottle take it out, then feel something twitch in my stomach and put the bottle back …' - whether they refer to the wine itself or perception of the grape.