• 2007 Painted Wolf Wines Pinotage - South Africa, Coastal Region (30/01/2010)
  Really dark colour and dense tight flavours of damson. I think this is going to be a real cracker some time, but it still hasn't opened up. Folloing day after being left open all night it had softened and was perfumed, so keep for another year. (86 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

I bought 4 of these at £9.99 each at a local shop in Oct 08 after meeting the owner, Jeremy Borg, there at a tasting. Decided after first bottle they needed more time. I reckon by time its ready I won't have any left

Pinotage is one grape I struggle to get on with. I had a super-coffee-charged Diemersfontein recently and that further put me off.

I suspect Pinotage is a grape that needs careful handing and a skilled producer, this would then command a higher price.

Are there any you would recommend pontac? Available at say, Waitrose?

Quite an old tasting note, but if you in buying pants...

If they still have it.

Knock on Wood Reserve Red 2007 M&S £12.99


Made for M&S by Bruce Jack, Flagstone Winery from 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Pinotage, 15% Shiraz and 15% Petit Verdot.

The grapes are cold soaked for one to two weeks, then fermented at 26-28ºC. Aged for fourteen months in mainly American oak barrels, with a 30% new oak component.


Strange and very interesting, complex collection of flavours. Fragrant, perhaps violets but also some rubber. Very inviting. Spicy and delicious taste. Fruity, definitely, but the heat is hidden and it’s very moreish. Lovely.

19/09/08

14.50%

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mel

Any idea what the allowances are for alcohol percentage labelling in SA Mel?

+/- .5% or greater, like in the US?

I am not Mel but

In SA the labelling is generally accurate, i.e if the wine is 14.7% it will say so on the label.

In the EU wines have to be labelled to the nearest .0 or .5 % (why, I don't know). So export wines will have a different label, and export labelled wines are often found on the SA home market -- I'm not sure of the legality of that -- however there is an allowance of 1 between the label and the actual alcohol % as found when the wine is tested & certified by the Wine & Spirit Board --as nearly* all wines are in SA.


*Must be certified for export and must be certified if they make any claim to vintage, region of origin, grape variety or vintage. The certification seal is the white label stuck on the neck of each bottle.

The coffee and chocolate style of Pinotage was created by Diemersfontein ten years ago and it is exceptionally popular and has been followed by half a dozen other wineries.

At the recent WineX wine show in Cape Town where visitors are invited to vote for their favourite wine as they leave, Diemersfontein came top followed by KWVs Cafe Culture and Barista -- both being coffee Pinotages.

I would say they are popular with casual wine drinkers or newcomers, and Diemersfontein has certainly created a great deal of interest when I have shown it at tastings.

Personally I can't drink more than a glass. (Diemersfontein make a different premium label 'Carpe Diem' Pinotage without the coffee treatment, but I don't now who stocks that.

Waitrose? Ithink their selection of SA wines is the worst they have had fr a very long time, especially at the lower prices where there is the blandness of invented name on shippers labels.

Waitrose list only two Pinotages, the other being Southern Right 07 at £11.99. That is in quite a different style and its not one of my favourites beinga little austere, not as fruit forward as I like, though the 08 vintage is better.

Best example of Pinotage is Kanonkop 07 at The Wine Society at £17, and Tesco used to do a Tesco Finest Beyers Truter Reserve Pinotage that is very good (it is basically Beyerskloof Reserve with a different label), and I think the standard white label Beyerskloof Pinotage 2008 vintage is a classic Pinotage example.

Thanks for that.

Best example of Pinotage is Kanonkop 07 at The Wine Society at £17,

This man knows a thing or two about wine.

Lovely drop of something very different. Waitrose also carried it at one time in their fine wine section, many moons now, as well as Oddbins. I should have it again. Long time no see.

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Duncan

What's he doing here then?

Ooo, look, my thousandth post...

T'was expecting you'd catch-up and join the millenium club

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Duncan

Ooh look 4777 posts

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mel

No one likes a show off.

btw, the forum is fast approaching its 10k post.