[WTN] Winery Road 2005 Pinotage

This ended up in my collection as a result of asking in my local wine retailer for an intensely fruity new-world wine. I wasn't very familar with Pinotage, so I happily picked it up as a learning experience.

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The wine is a dirty dark purple colour and looks quite unappetising.

The aroma is quite bizarre, like the characteristic Pinot Noir smell of autumn leaves on steroids. It's a somewhat nutty smell, which reminds me a little of very ripe cheese. There's some oak in there as well.

The wine is full bodied, tannic and thick on the palate and has quite the most intense taste of smoke I've ever come across in a wine. The supporting cast of flavours includes blackcurrant, tar, cloves and a slight medicinal quality.

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I quite enjoyed this but it's definitely a wine to go with food - it'd go down a treat with a barbecue. Intensely flavoured for sure, but not really of fruit - the guy in the wine shop certainly recommends good wines, but not ones that seem to fit with the priorities I've been describing to him!

Thanks for the note Matt. I also find some Pinotage to have a medicinal or perhaps band aid, smell-taste. If you look around the site, you will find an earlier discussion about what, exactly, casues this in wine. I am afraid I can't remember off hand.

Great note, Matt. I love that leathery/earthy/medicinal aspect of Pinotage.

Some examples of Pinotage are very fruity - mainly this comes across as a strawberry/banana/plum synthesis. I love the interplay between this very Pinotage-centered fruit profile (wholly different than Cab or Merlot) and the aforementioned earthy/chemical/medicine-type aromas.

Matt's TN coincides very well with my memories of Pinotage although the "bandaid" could be merely Brett.

I guess Winery Road could be a label of Ken Forrester since he owns a restaurant at 96 Winery Road near Stellenbosch, but it is not a label I have heard of. Forrester's Pinotage has his name and the brand 'Petit Pinotage', but this may be a special bottling and it isnot listed on his website. Do you have any more info on the producer -- is there an 'A' number on the bottle?

Ref the band-aid comment: band-aid shouldn't be ascribed as a characteristic of the Pinotage variety, unfortunately it affects many South African reds however few people have tasted non-SA Pinotage and often Pinotage is the only SA red they know.

It seems that a particularly robust form of Brett is prevalent in SA -- read my recent post here for the more http://www.pinotage.org/2007/11/saddle- ... otage.html

Hi Peter, are you just back from NZ?

Matt good question! Not too much Pinotage up here in Alberta and has never seemed to have caught on with the average punter. (P causes lots of mirth on that UK forum!!!!!). We are more sophisticated (spelling?)here on WineLovers.

Hi Peter, are you just back from NZ?
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Yes, got back Friday, and I'm still jetlagged. Always seems worse when coming home. I had a wonderful time in NZ but it was very intense.

Re P on UK forum, it went beyond mirth some years ago and I find it quite nasty.

Do you have any more info on the producer -- is there an 'A' number on the bottle?

I can check the bottle later - but hopefully this should give you all th information you need:
http://www.greatwesternwine.co.uk/produ ... _id=200076

We are more sophisticated (spelling?)here on WineLovers.

Good (and the spelling is fine). The guy in the shop mentioned that Pinotage tended to be a love it/hate it sort of thing and I've read as much elsewhere. However, I find it hard to see why having drunk this bottle. Seemed like a pretty good (though not outstanding) full-bodied red to me, having a lot in common with other full bodied-reds. The most distinctive marker for me was the thick smoke flavour.

I went to Alberta once some years ago in May. I was astonished to find that although it was peaking in the high twenties (centrigrade) there was still snow on the ground! How did that happen?

I went to Alberta once some years ago in May. I was astonished to find that although it was peaking in the high twenties (centrigrade) there was still snow on the ground! How did that happen?

Matt, depends on your elevation, where were you? We have so much snow here some years, it takes quite a while to melt. Plus one can go from minus 20 to plus ten in a few hours.

Matt, depends on your elevation, where were you? We have so much snow here some years, it takes quite a while to melt. Plus one can go from minus 20 to plus ten in a few hours.

I drove from Banff through to Calgary and then up to Drumheller.

Meinert Wines.

A1176

http://www.meinert.co.za

Meinert Wines.

A1176

http://www.meinert.co.za

A1176 is Meinert Wines at Devon Crest

I know Martin Meinert. He was winemaker at Vergelegen who went off to do his own thing. Has a range of excellent wines under his own name, has his own private winery in Devon Valley where he makes wine for himself and others.

He is winemaker for Ken Forrester -- the M in FMC is him in the superb Chenin that I have shown in many tasting and co-incidentally Jamie Goode calls "perhaps South Africa’s finest expression of Chenin blanc" in his blog yesterday.

But the Winery Road name still makes me think that there is a Forrester connection.......