Pinotage – it’s a word that runs easily off the tongue and, thanks to winemakers’ greater understanding of how to get the best out of it, including planting vines in cooler areas, it’s a wine that today runs more easily down the throat.
The vine itself is a cross of Cinsaut and Pinot Noir, bred in 1925 by Professor Abraham Izak Perold. It’s a story of legend how Perold forgot about the four seedlings resulting from the cross and planted in his garden when he left the University of Stellenbosch and moved to KWV. Suffice to say, the seedlings were rescued and one went on to become the mother of all the Pinotage vines we have today.
Some will have raised an eyebrow, wondering how the name Pinotage was arrived at, when the cross is half Cinsaut.
Pinot derives from Pinot Noir but the ‘age’ suffix was taken from Hermitage, the name Cinsaut was known by in the Cape at the time. Quite why is uncertain as, from the French point of view, Hermitage is an appellation in the Northern Rhône, where the only red grape permitted is Syrah. Cinsaut comes from further south, where it’s one of 13 varieties permitted in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and further south still, from Languedoc-Roussillon.
As far as the Cape’s viticultural history is concerned, Perold wrote in his 1927 Treatise on Viticulture that Hermitage was first planted here in the 1880s. Perhaps the importation of vines wasn’t so strictly monitored in those days and any number of confusions, including mislabelling, could have arisen between the originating nursery and Cape farmer.
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