Pinotage moves on

Many examples give pleasure with finesse

From Business Day, 9 July  2008

With all the discussion around burnt rubber aromas in South African wine, it will only be a matter of time before someone decides that pinotage may be the source of the offending substance.

Just over 30 years ago Michael Broadbent (head of Christie’s wine department) pronounced his damning judgment of the Cape’s homegrown variety when he observed that it tasted of “rusty nails”. This is not a flavour profile with which many people are familiar but it sounded sufficiently unappetising to do great damage to the image of the cultivar. For many years pinotage languished at the lower end of the price range.

Much of its rehabilitation and renaissance was the work of one man — Beyers Truter. When Jan “Boland” Coetzee left Kanonkop in the early 1980s to launch his own Vriesenhof property, Truter took over the Kanonkop winery. His career since this has been one of the most influential in the recent history of the Cape wine industry. During his stint at Kanonkop (and initially more or less simultaneously at Beyerskloof, where he now devotes all his time) he reinvented the way the variety was handled, helping to give it an almost Rhone-like flavour profile. Just as new oak was being pioneered at the top end of the industry, he showed that it could play a useful role in managing the texture and flavour profile of pinotage.

He managed to avoid the tutti-frutti styles which began to emerge in the mid-1990s (though it is fair to say that his approach to pinotage encouraged many of his colleagues to attempt quite adventurous vinifications. Prefermentation cold soaks, cool as well as warmer fermentations — and, of course, the perennial pursuit of ever riper fruit — all became part of the industry’s new way of managing SA’s unique red vinous statement.

The formation of the Pinotage Association and the very clever strategic decision by Absa to sponsor the annual “Pinotage Top Ten” competition did a great deal to raise the general profile of the variety in the domestic market. After 1994, when Cape wine was again welcomed in export markets, the cultivar also profited from the curiosity of international consumers keen to try something uniquely South African.

It is fair to say that since those heady days pinotage has taken a step back. This is probably the inevitable result of some of the overseas buyers having moved on. It may also reflect the failure of some of the key producers — seduced by the strong sales of the immediately post-1994 years — to engage in the same level of innovation which has characterised the efforts of many of the other top players.

But pinotage has been moving on — perhaps without the same fanfares of a decade ago — and there are several wines which now have an almost Burgundian feel to them. The sadness is that they are a hard sell — at least when it comes to wooing new aficionados to the cause. This much was made clear during the judging of the pinotage class at this year’s Trophy Wine Show. The local judges had difficulty crossing the threshold into Gold Medal status whereas the international panelist, Joel Paine (editor of Wine Business International and twice Germany’s top sommelier), was more passionate. This was a repeat of a debate a few years ago when Michel Bettane (probably France’s best known taster) did manage to persuade his fellow judges to award a gold medal to a wine he said had all the charm of a good Burgundy.

I suspect that many of the variety’s former fans are perhaps a little gun-shy when it comes to giving pinotage another chance. This is a pity because wines such as Ashbourne, Beyerskloof, Fairview, Longridge, L’Auberge du Paysan, L’Avenir and Pulpit Rock are worth tracking down. Several give more pleasure than many more expensive Cape Pinots. All are intrinsically well made, deliver dollops of flavour, ample texture, and a finesse often missing in the show wines of yesteryear.