MAKING PROGRESS WITH PINOTAGE

Most of the winners of the first Pinotage Top Ten competition were from 1996. Tim James attended a tasting of these wines, and found most of his doubts about the vintage confirmed – but two 1995s helped salvage pinotage's good name.

It was rather bad luck for pinotage that it was 1997 when the ABSA Top Ten competition was launched: it meant that most of the entrants were from the rather dismal 1996 vintage, not the best way to get things off to a really good start. Seven of the inaugural Top Ten were 1996s, one (Jacobsdal) was a 1994, and Kanonkop and Grangehurst were from the 1995 vintage.

A recent tasting of the first Top Ten made it clear that this is not a group of wines that, on the whole, the Pinotage Association would like to trumpet about too much. Most of the wines will certainly not convince doubters around the world that pinotage is a premium red wine variety, let alone one that makes wine capable of ageing well and gracefully. That said, the two 1995 wines in the line-up did persuasively argue the case for pinotage.

Some aspects of ongoing debate about pinotage revealed themselves in various ways in this tasting. Firstly, the Achilles heel of the variety, a bitter aftertaste, was evident in some of the wines, to different degrees – although it must be said that the experience of bitterness varies markedly, as different people have very different bitterness threshholds. Swartland Reserve and Clos Malverne were perhaps the chief offenders in this respect, while Kaapzicht Reserve, Rooiberg, L’Avenir and Beyerskloof showed at least a bitter finishing twist. At low manifestations, bitterness is not always necessarily to be deplored – it is accepted as a trait in certain Italian wines, and it can effectively counter the sweet jamminess often present in pinotage. One problem for pinotage lies in the uncertainty: will bitterness be there or not? will it decrease with age (which occasionally seems to be the case), or will it get worse (also not uncommon)?

Also obvious from this Top Ten selection was the range of styles in which the grape manifests itself. Curiously, this seems to be a problem for some people (local and foreign), who seem to think that ‘pinotage’ should somehow imply a style as well as being a variety – something that is not demanded of any other grape. Pinotage, like all grapes, has many plausible manifestations; this tasting had wines ranging from the simple, light and unpretentious with little wooding (Rooiberg, Swartland, Beyerskloof) to richer and more powerful, more complex examples on which a good deal of expensive American and/or even more expensive French oak had been lavished (Bellingham Spitz, L’Avenir, Kaapzicht Reserve, Kanonkop). The lighter wines in this tasting were generally past their best, however; it had done them no favours to keep them longer than the year or two for which they were destined.

The range of styles – and of quality – points not to any problem inherent in pinotage but perhaps to one in the Top Ten competition itself. It is unclear whether the aim in 1997 was to reward what were perceived as the best wines available, or to recognise and applaud diversity. Lumping them all together as ‘winners’, without indicating that they have very different virtues, does not necessarily advance the cause. How meaningful is it to put Kanonkop and Rooiberg on the same pedestal, implicitly suggesting that similar things are to be expected from them?

Not that restraint in using wood necessarily implies a more modest wine (a lesson that many pinotage producers could well learn from some of the great Rhône winemakers); it is a stylistic choice, as well as a question of appropriateness. The use of wood was a matter of significance in this tasting: Kaapzicht and Bellingham were dominated by wood flavours – partly because the fruit was by now in retreat, partly because the use of wood had been badly judged in the first place: pinotage no less than other grape varieties suffers from producers thinking that the scents and flavours of wood will persuade wine-writers and customers of the high quality of the wine (as it does persuade too many, too often). Given the lightness of the 1996 vintage, use of wood should have been correspondingly restrained, but one disgruntled participant at this tasting complained that Bellingham Spitz was more the result of carpentry than winemaking....

Some notes on a few of the wines: L’Avenir was savoury and meaty, with strange, funky notes to it, and an acidic and slightly bitter finish – disappointing for a much-bemedalled wine; perhaps this was a poor bottle. Jacobsdal 1994 was the oldest wine in the line-up and likely past its best, fairly dilute, and showing too much powdery dry tannin. Back to 1996: Clos Malverne was for me the poorest of the wines: harsh, bitter, and all over the place. It was a great pleasure to come to the Grangehurst 1995 which, though light-ish, was well structured and showed good varietal character. Kanonkop 1995 showed yet again Beyers Truter’s mastery of the grape (at least when allied to Kanonkop terroir and viticulture): well-handled oak that supported rather than dominated the fruit, which was harmoniously integrated with crisp acidity and ripe tannins; a wine that happily brought to mind the pinot noir half of pinotage’s parentage; drinking well now but capable of further ageing.

But, but, but ... on the whole not a set of award-winners to treasure, and it is likely that tastings of subsequent Top Tens will tell a happier story. Some sets of these inaugural winners were sold for a handsome (ridiculous?) price at the most recent Nederburg auction; it is difficult not to have a little sympathy for the buyers when they break open the packaging and get down to drinking.

The tasting was presented by Louis Roos, winemaker at Mooiplaas, for Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellars in Cape Town.