Robust and dark-fruited, its once-rustic tannins tamed by lower yields and careful oak
Ageing
5–15 years
Serving
16–18 °C
Pinotage is South Africa's own invention: in 1925 Abraham Perold, professor at Stellenbosch, crossed pinot noir with cinsaut — then locally called hermitage, which gave the new grape its portmanteau name. It waited a generation for its debut: the first varietal bottling appeared only in 1959, under the Lanzerac label.
Its reputation has swung. Rustic examples earned it detractors; careful yields and oak refined it into mulberry, plum and smoke, though the "coffee pinotage" fad of the 2000s — heavy toast, mocha sweetness — briefly sidetracked it again. Today it anchors the Cape Blend, the red assembly in which South Africa asks its own grape to speak first.