Community Tasting Note

• RRees wrote: 78 points

  January 13, 2011 - The whole issue surrounding Pinotage - its appreciation and promotion, is mostly all about that crazy kind of funky wood-smoke filled palatte, with what some of the edgier wine gurus may call "burnt rubber tyre tracks". To steal a metaphor from a far better writer than I - "Pinotage is like opera - either you love it or hate it". I am in the second camp (and definitely not the former). I had dinner with Pinotage virgins last night who are preparing for their Abercrombie and Kent attack on Africa - and who were keen to have a ramble amongst the South African wine list we were considering.
  
  The wine was a limp-wristed re-write of the attributes that made the varietal so famous and contentious for the past 200 and more years. There was no nose of any significance, the palatte was a generic PG rated and a frankly boring construct of fruit and oak. The length was not there at all - disappointment reigned supreme. I am a major fan of Kanonkop and until now have never had one that disappointed in any way... I hope that SA winemakers are not trying to turn the volume down on the style of production of a varietal that is as quinessentially South African as Braaivleis (BBQ), Rugby, Sunny Skies and that compelling and almost dangerous kind of x-factor that prevails over all aspects of what is means to be South African.

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