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Pinotage is 'the' red wine grape of South Africa, although many South Africans shun the variety because of its polarizing, 'un-European' flavor profile and the care it requires both in the vineyard and the winery. Created in Stellenbosch in 1925, Pinotage is a crossing of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut. The first 'Pinot' half of the name is obvious in its derivation, and was given priority because of the prestige associated with Burgundy's great red grape. The 'age' part is less transparent, however. It was taken from the end of Hermitage, one of several local names for Cinsaut, and its position as the obscure back end of the crossing's title confirms Cinsaut's lowly status when compared to Pinot Noir.
Like Cinsaut and various other red wine varieties common in southern France (Grenache and Mourvedre among them), Pinotage is best when grown as a bush vine. Although this may seem a trivial detail to the uninitiated, it is believed that the way a vine is trained has a significant impact on the flavor and structure of wines made from its grapes. As a rule of thumb, the looser, wilder and freer a vine grows, the fruitier, more vibrant and unrestrained its wines. Closely pruned, strictly trellised vines give wines with more deeper, more austere flavors and stronger acid structure. Precisely how the training style affects the vine depends on the variety, but it is safe to say that Pinotage shows its most impressive flavors when grown as a bush vine.
Pinotage wines are famously unreliable, which is one of the few things they have in common with Pinot Noir (red Burgundy at least). This is particularly true since many thousands of ancient Pinotage bush vines were uprooted in the 1970s and 1980s, when the variety was at its least fashionable. At that time, the economic prospect of tending low-yielding, old, disease-prone vines to make unsellable wine was far from an attractive one. South Africa lost over half of its Pinotage vines back then, starting, perversely enough, with those which were capable of producing the finest wines.
A bad Pinotage wine can be an over-tannic, over-acidic affair with all the charm of scorched beef dusted with raw cocoa and unripe cherries. It has all the ingredients to be great, but must be coaxed into being so, both during the growing season and during winemaking. A good Pinotage sticks in the memory, and is closer to a seared steak garnished with a dark chocolate cherry coulis. It seems to have inherited the promise and petulance of Pinot and all the aggressive, tangy power of Cinsaut.
Outside South Africa Pinotage has been no more successful, but has retained the air of intrigue nonetheless. In New Zealand the variety has found a home in several North Island wine regions, Hawkes Bay and several Auckland sub-regions among them. It is also grown in parts of California and in Israel.
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