Pinotage from NZ

You are correct in that Pinotage is a hybrid of Pinot Noir and Cinsault. To the best of my knowledge, it was first created in South Africa. Indeed, I've never heard of it being grown elsewhere, though I suppose it was inevitable. Out of curiosity, how much was it? Some of the best SA Pinotages only run US $25-30.

Cheers, Gary

Gary, When I was touring NZ with Lord St. H. and Ian Hoare, St. H. mentioned that Pinotage was widely planted there in the early days of the wine industry. Now, however, most is gone, supplanted by more "upscale" varietals. I forget whether the Pinotage there was bottled as a table wine, or made into a fortified wine, but perhaps someone can weigh in on that issue.

Mark Lipton

Pinotage is a South African varietal, a professor at South Africa's Stellenbosch University, Abraham Izak Perold, successfully crossed the varieties in 1925 and the first wines from the resultant Pinotage grape were made in 1941. Pinotage is actually a cross - not a hybrid. A hybrid results from two different species, Cinsault and Pinot Noir are of the same genus and species, both vitis vinifera. I had been particularly unimpressed with the versions of this wine I had tried, typically they were stalky, green, astringent, acid dominant wines that provided me with no real incentive to seek out better examples. This changed in September last year when I had Stelzner Estate Pinotage at the winery. This was an excellent wine with deep rich colour lots of black fruit on the nose with a touch of coffee, great velvety texture in the mouth with excellent concentrated blackberries, violets and cocoa, good structure with well integrated tannins and a long aftertaste of blackberry & spice, fairly high in alcohol this wine has proved itself an excellent food wine. I can't remember how much I paid for this wine but think it was under $20 US. Cheers Andrew