What exactly is South African Pinotage?

Pinotage polarises people. Some write it off as rustic and old-fashioned. Others call it South Africa's greatest contribution to wine. Both camps are arguing about wines made thirty years ago.

The grape was created in 1925 by Professor Abraham Izak Perold at Stellenbosch University, who crossed Pinot Noir with Cinsault. Cinsault was known locally as Hermitage at the time, which is where the name comes from. Perold wanted Burgundy's elegance with the reliability of a Rhone workhorse. What he got was something that tastes like neither parent, and which grows nowhere else in any quantity.

What Pinotage actually tastes like

The classic style is dark plum and blackberry with a smokiness that reads as wood fire or braai coals. Underneath there is usually an earthy, almost meaty depth, and the tannins are softer than the weight of the wine leads you to expect. Kanonkop Kadette Pinotage at £19.49 is the reference point here, from the estate that has done more for the grape than anyone.

Modern winemaking pulls it somewhere else entirely: brighter red fruit, gentle spice, a silkier texture. Painted Wolf The Den Pinotage at £12.79 shows that restraint at an everyday price, and Bruce Jack Off The Charts Pinotage at £14.20 does it with a bit more swagger.

Then there is coffee Pinotage, which deserves its own paragraph. Certain producers use techniques that push chocolate and coffee bean characters right to the front, so the wine smells like espresso and drinks like liquid mocha. Darling Cellars Chocoholic Pinotage at £14.49 is the clearest example we stock. You will either love it or wonder why anyone would want wine to taste like coffee. There is not much middle ground.

The styles worth knowing

Young, fruity Pinotage is built for drinking now, full of berry fruit and light on its feet. Serve it slightly chilled, which sounds wrong for a red and is not. Hazy View Pinotage at £9.99 and KWV Classic Pinotage at £10.59 both work this way, and neither asks much of your wallet.

At the other end are the structured wines that will sit in a cellar for a decade, usually from old bush vines and careful handling. Spice Route Swartland Pinotage at £20 and Fairview Paarl Pinotage at £18.99 are both in that bracket, savoury and serious rather than showy.

The oak-aged classics are what made the grape's name: rich, smoky, generous, and wanting a Sunday roast rather than a Tuesday supper. Bellevue Estate Collection Pinotage at £16.99 sits squarely in that tradition.

Pinotage also makes very good rosé, which surprises people. The Den Pinotage Rosé at £12.49 brings strawberry fruit with a trace of that smoky character underneath, and Fox and Flamingo Rosé at £13.99 is the more textured of the two.

Why it got a bad reputation

In the 1980s and 1990s a lot of Pinotage was pushed too hard. Heavy oak, aggressive extraction, and the grape's rustic edge amplified rather than managed. International critics were not impressed, and the wines went out of fashion for a generation.

What changed is the winemaking, not the grape. A newer generation worked out that Pinotage responds badly to force and well to patience. The wines being made now bear very little resemblance to the ones that damaged the reputation, which is why anyone who tried it in 1998 and gave up is judging a category that no longer exists.

What to drink it with

Match the intensity and you can hardly go wrong. Grilled meat is the obvious partner, particularly lamb chops or a steak that has spent time over charcoal, because the smoke in the glass answers the char on the plate.

Game works just as well. Venison, duck, or a proper game pie all have the earthiness to meet Pinotage halfway. Mushroom risotto is the pairing that surprises people, and it works for the same reason: savoury depth on both sides.

For cheese, go mature. Aged Gouda or a sharp Cheddar will pull complexity out of the wine that you would not notice on its own.

What to avoid is anything delicate. Sole meunière and light pasta will simply disappear underneath it.

Where the good ones come from

Producer matters more than anything with this grape. Kanonkop, Fairview and Spice Route all understand what Pinotage will and will not do, and it shows in the glass.

Region shapes the style. Stellenbosch tends to give the most polished examples. The Swartland is more rustic and characterful, with Swartland bush vine sites doing much of the interesting work. Cooler coastal sites produce restrained versions that convert sceptics more often than the big wines do.

Why UK drinkers are coming round

British wine buyers have got more adventurous, and Pinotage rewards that. It tastes of a specific place, from a grape that essentially exists in one country. That is a rarer thing than it sounds.

The value is the other half of the argument. While everyone else competes for Burgundy and Barolo, a genuinely good Pinotage costs about what a mid-range Bordeaux does. Our full South African Pinotage range runs from under £10 to the serious end, and we deliver across the UK.

If you have never tried the grape, start with a modern, restrained bottle from a producer who knows it. If you tried it years ago and were not convinced, the honest advice is to try again, because the wines have moved on considerably. Approach it on its own terms rather than as a substitute for something else, and it tends to repay the effort.