Donald is originally from Durban in South Africa and with in-depth knowledge of the South African wine industry that will be the focus of his articles.
Read more about Donald Griffiths and see other articles by this author.
Discuss the pinotage grape variety in a room full of wine buffs and you’ll pretty much split the room down the middle. I call it the Marmite grape as the wines it produces you either love or hate – there are no grey areas. Conceived as the love child cross between the Cinsault (or Hermitage as it is known in South Africa) and Pinot Noir grape by Professor Abraham Perold of Stellenbosch University in 1925, South African winemakers still seem to be unsure as to how best vinify it. North America has made the Zinfandel their own, similarly Australia the Shiraz and Argentina the Malbec but although pinotage is unique to South Africa and produces fabulous wines when handled correctly – Kanonkop being a good example – I think its fair to say that it hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm. It still receives a bad press in certain quarters and when I open a bottle for my knowledgeable English wine-drinking friends there is a lot of collective nose-wrinkling when I tell them what grape variety it is.
Every now and then a wine producer comes along with the best recipe for Pinotage in my opinion – big, full-bodied and masculine blockbusters of a wine. Stanford Hills of the Walker Bay region in South Africa are a case in point. This part of the country is better known for whale-watching – the famous town of Hermanus is on the northern end of the bay. The nearby town of Stanford is named after Sir Robert Stanford who farmed the area in the early to mid-1800′s. It is a region of astonishing natural beauty with many plant species unique to the area and also has a cooler micro-climate compared to some other better-known wine regions which enables the grapes to ripen slowly and help to make wine of smooth quality.
Stanford Hills is a relatively new wine producer and they have produced 3 vintages of Pinotage to date. The grapes are hand-picked to ensure that only the best are selected at the yield of 6 tons per hectare. They are then crushed and cold-macerated before being inoculated with yeast to aid fermentation which is done in French an Hungarian oak barrels.
The wine is an almost opaque, deep dark purple colour with a blood-red tinge and indications of plenty of alcohol (14%). On the nose it smells like blackcurrant ribena with slight hints of the surrounding fynbos and roasted coffee. It is an extremely viscous wine – almost port-like in body – with dark plum fruit overlaid by spicy red berry tones and a hint of wood and spice. It has a long finish with plenty of grip and well-balanced tannins and fruit. No hints of acetate, wellington boots or bubblegum here!
Food matches will need to be bold and flavourful – venison, roasts and rich casseroles as well as the strongest of cheeses.
Marks out of 100 – 87.5
The wine was available a few weeks go from The Sunday Times Wine Club for £ 9.99 a bottle but they are currently out of stock.
