WTN: In which a very impressive Pinotage takes WOTN

[Jenise]

And there were a LOT of good wines, but the Pinotage broke all the rules. Read on....

So the Dorks of York occasionally take a break from themes and have an Open, in which everyone tries to stump the chumps. Present were wine retailer John and wife Nancy, ex-wine retailer and now-distributor Gabe and wife Melissa, wine nut Allen, and newbies Brad and Bronwyn who met when he was painting the house next door and uphill from the house she was sunbathing nude on the roof of, which is one of the best "how we met" stories I've ever heard. For him, it was love at first sight. Literally. All the wines were served blind.

The Whites

1) Lemon, guava and ginger with great acidity. Bright and refreshing. And it's a Spanish Muscat, of all things. 2010 Gessami from the Pinedes.

2) (My wine) Cheesy nose, funky, white grapefruit, pears, passion fruit, fennel starfruit and grass. Big bodied but balanced. Melissa: "my new breakfast wine!" Took some doing to get the group to zero in on Siegerrebbe, and they were stunned when they found out it's origins: a vineyard on Lake Whatcom, which is practically downtown Bellingham comparatively speaking. 2010 Terranova.

3) Fresh and clean like line-dried laundry. Pale and clear. No apparent oak, green grapes, but the flavor built and built. Unfortunately, I didn't takes notes on what those new flavors were. However, it reminded me of an Italian white I once had from Piedemonte, which I said and which amazing turned out to be right in terms of origins. However, I hadn't a clue about the grapes. Turns out, it's a nebbiolo blanc with 6% chardonnay. My notes don't do it justice, but I thought so much of it I bought two bottles yesterday. ($15.99). 2010 La Novella Chiavennasca.

4) Nose of urine sample taken about one hour after a vitamin B hormone shot. Which blew off a bit, but not completely. It was clearly an off bottle. Gabe's wine, and oddly I didn't write down the name--with that description, you might not even be curious, but Gabe swears other bottles he's opened weren't like that--it was a pinot noir blanc from Italy.

5) Almost clear, clean, orange blossom fragrance, persistent fine bubble. Has to be a Vinho Verde, and it is. A nice one. 2010 Calamares.


The Reds

6) Grapey and floral at first, though it firmed up and developed some good earthiness. Good, with upside potential. 2009 Podere Ruggeri Corsini, Langhe, a nebbiolo, dolcetto and barbera blend.

7) Ooh, great nose. Cabby. More acidity and dryness than we expect in California but not austere enough for Bordeaux, great spice, earth and balance. Excellent. 2006 Clos du Val Stags Leap District Cabernet.

Definitely another cab. More heft, very French oaky spice, blackberry, huckleberry, lightly herbal and sweeter than the Clos du Val,
it's the 2007 L'Ecole No. 41 'Apogee', their flagship cab blend. Excellent. This won WOTN honors from the new couple.

9) Burnt rubber, violets, asphalt, green olives, tomato leaf and black pepper. Gotta be a northern Rhone, only question was whether it was Crozes or St. Joseph. The latter. Excellent. 2007 Domaine Faury VV, St. Joseph.

10) (my wine again) Smoke, rubber, strawberry, black currant, barnyard but within limits, gamey, clove, pepper and watermelon. The nose is huge, the palate's huge, the finish endless, and the combination of complex flavors is hypnotic but unfamiliar. Everybody but the new couple are instantly and madly in love with this, but no one can figure it out. John and Gabe start with Europe and Syrah and go on from the super obvious to the far less obvious, naming virtually every vinifera and every grape-growing region worthy of producing a quality wine like this. The guesswork becomes palpably painful when I then inform them that this is a grape that each always has on their shelf. And it only gets worse when I tell them that the grape is a cross. Nothing, NOTHING in their experience with South Africa and Pinotage prepared them for a wine like this. And of course I knew what it was--1998 Kanonkop Pinotage--but I was almost there with them as though I bought it because I liked it, I never guessed it could develop this kind of magnificence. It was truly a great, masterful wine at the most perfect point in its life. Wish I had a second bottle. WOTN for the remaining six of us, without hesitation.

4) Nose of urine sample taken about one hour after a vitamin B hormone shot.

Words escape me

If Paul B. reads this post about Pinotage we'll never hear the end of it. I would have loved to have tasted this Pinotage because I never had one I even liked.

[Jenise]

You'd have been as blown away as John and Gabe were, Lou. I wish I had a video of their faces trying to figure out how anything THAT amazing could be something they already knew but hadn't named. And then when they learned what it was--priceless, absolutely priceless. It's the wine nobody but Peter May, I think, knew was possible.

I never would have thought a descriptor of "burnt rubber" would be associated with a wine which was judged to be "excellent". I always associate the "burnt rubber" descriptor with mercaptan and other sulfurous off-flavors. Which served to make your tasting note refreshing. Rogov once questioned my characterization of a strongly appealing wine as having a decadent, cheesy and rotting broccoli character. One brings ones own experiences to to the table, and the best way to understand such descriptors is to taste wine with the person who uses them.

On a side note, it seems that Pinotage must hves passed me by. Having made the jump to drinking only kosher wine back in '84, and tasting others only for particular and specific purposes, and having never had Pinotage to work with, I was unaware that there was a maturation of the winemaking in South Africa, as there must have been to find a description such as the above. Obviously, the kosher examples have not yet, and may never, make the quality leap, and I still find the majority of descriptions of Pinotages I read to be less than compelling. It's nice to see that there are still no absolutes in the world of wine.

[Jenise]

I never would have thought a descriptor of "burnt rubber" would be associated with a wine which was judged to be "excellent". I always associate the "burnt rubber" descriptor with mercaptan and other sulfurous off-flavors. Which served to make your tasting note refreshing. Rogov once questioned my characterization of a strongly appealing wine as having a decadent, cheesy and rotting broccoli character. One brings ones own experiences to to the table, and the best way to understand such descriptors is to taste wine with the person who uses them.

On a side note, it seems that Pinotage must hves passed me by. Having made the jump to drinking only kosher wine back in '84, and tasting others only for particular and specific purposes, and having never had Pinotage to work with, I was unaware that there was a maturation of the winemaking in South Africa, as there must have been to find a description such as the above. Obviously, the kosher examples have not yet, and may never, make the quality leap, and I still find the majority of descriptions of Pinotages I read to be less than compelling. It's nice to see that there are still no absolutes in the world of wine.

Craig, nice of you to chime in on my note. We met once, btw, at IIRC a Family Winemakers tasting in Pasadena. And if it wasn't there I'm not sure where it was, but I do remember you.

Re tasting descriptors, I actually try to not go too off-the-wall. I recall, early in my winetasting learning curve, reading a description by someone more experienced than I of "old growth redwood forest" and rolling my eyes, wondering snarkily just how 'old'. But now I'm guilty of such things myself, as the pinot noir blanc above is evidence. However, 'burnt rubber', and I mean tire rubber, isn't just me this time, it's a very typical and well-recognized aroma about some Northern Rhone syrahs. When I put my nose in that glass of Faury, I knew what it was.

Pinotage has actually passed most people by, and the simplistic lesser examples make it easy to understand why. Even ITB guys like my friends Gabe and John had no idea that ageable, high-end Pinotage exists, let alone how exciting it could be. It doesn't get offered to them, and what does, especially in the combat situation that tasting for retail purposes is here in Washington, is plonky.

I like that Gessami. A voluptuos nose but still pretty bright in the mouth.
Is it straight muscat or a blend of different grapes?
For some reason I remember a blend, but I could be thinking of something else.

Interesting note on the Faury. I really like the regular bottling of St Joseph (its up there with Gonon for my favorite St Joseph so far) but I have never tried the VV version.
I think it was Mike from Du Jour who told me he preferred the regular one, but I can't remember his reasons.

I would have liked to have tried the pinotage. I've only had a handful of faulty ones so far.
Big VA and rustic tannins is what I remember form the few I've tasted.

I agree with Jenise about rubber in Northern Rhone, and I also recall it from the one high quality SA Pinotage I've had.

[Jenise]

Marc, dunno about the Gessami. John didn't indicate other grapes, but the wine had enough complexity to suspect others were involved. I recall commenting that if more muscats tasted like this, I'd buy more muscat. Really enjoyed that. And I couldn't have had a better set-up for the Lake Whatcom Siegerrebbe.

Re the Faury, I've had a few of them over the years and always enjoyed them, but I've never done any side by side comparisons and unfortunately they're usually so few and far between that I can't draw conclusions. Hmmm...we're running out of Chenin Blanc weather. Perhaps the Crew can revisit the Rhone soon.

And you'd have loved the Pinotage, or at least been as amazed as John and Gabe were. But I don't have any more and I can't even find more around that we wouldn't have to wait for. Understandably, few here buy and hold wines like that. I wouldn't be one myself had I not attended a tasting called something like Wines You Wouldn't Know Were This Good at Hi Times in So Cal. This, they said, was the pinnacle of the grape. I bought the 98 and 99 and drank most of them early. Then after moving here opened one and thought it dried up, awful. But just in case that bottle just turned out to be sleeping, I held onto this one last bottle five or so more years and opened it on Tuesday on a lark, not expecting much. Blew me away, it did! Hi Times still carries it, and currently has the 08, which will be ready about 2021.

Which makes the remaining 09 Bojos around even more attractive. I agree most need more time, but they won't need that much time.

Nice that you got such a good one. I recently posted on an equally tasty De Waal Top of the Hill Pinotage - must be going around. Too bad these seem to be the exceptions rather than the rule!

FWIW I have also had good older Kanonkops, although I generally prefer their cabs.

I just realized the one top quality SA Pinotage I've had was also a Kanonkop, a 2000 at 7 years of age, and indeed that burnt rubber aroma was there.

[Jenise]

I agree with Jenise about rubber in Northern Rhone, and I also recall it from the one high quality SA Pinotage I've had.

Do you taste many South African wines? You're right, there's often a smoky/burnt quality to them, but it usually reminds me more of campfire ash--burning wood vs. burnt rubber, say. These Kanonkops DID go through a phase where that's ALL they tasted of and it was quite nasty, and in fact that was true of the bottle opened before this one 5-6 years ago, and why I expected nothing good of this one. It's amazing how that smokey thing calmed down and integrated into the rest of the wine once the whole chorus was awake and singing together.

First of all, I 'm sorry I don't remember meeting you, Jenise, but in any case I hope I wasn't too off-the-wall when we met, and of course, I hope my wines tasted good to you. Love to meet you again. MAybe the next Pasadena tasting, if the winery I work for ever joins Family Winemakers, something of which I unfortunately have no control.

Wow. So many people have tasted burnt rubber as a positive attribute that I am sure I am not using the term to describe the same characteristic as the one to which you attribute the term. This often occurs with people of disparate experience.

[Jenise]

First of all, I 'm sorry I don't remember meeting you, Jenise, but in any case I hope I wasn't too off-the-wall when we met, and of course, I hope my wines tasted good to you. Love to meet you again. MAybe the next Pasadena tasting, if the winery I work for ever joins Family Winemakers, something of which I unfortunately have no control.

Wow. So many people have tasted burnt rubber as a positive attribute that I am sure I am not using the term to describe the same characteristic as the one to which you attribute the term. This often occurs with people of disparate experience.

Not too off the wall at all! It was a pleasure to meet you. Had it been otherwise, I probably wouldn't have mentioned it.
Unfortunately no more Pasadena tastings for me, I've moved to the other end of I-5. I live outside of Vancouver, BC, on the American side of the border.

But back to burnt rubber, the first time I tasted it was an 85 Guigal Cote Rotie a guest brought to dinner. I hated it, it tasted like a tire. But over the course of the evening something pulled me back over and over, and by the end of the night I was in love. I couldn't get further than 'tire' until I read Jancis Robinson's description of "burnt rubber" in the then new Oxford Wine Companion. Oh, actually? That first edition had a typo. It said "burnt runner".

Hey, c'mon Jenise, real geeks diss pinotage, something about grape apartheid or some similar nonsense.

I had that Gesami years ago. Not a bad wine for the buck.

Jenise, that was the only top-flight wine from South Africa I ever had.

Jenise, that was the only top-flight wine from South Africa I ever had.

Chaim,

Ealier this year we found the Kanonkap Paul Sauer 1998 to be the winner in a "Bordeaux out of Bordeaux" blind tasting.
(Sharon ans Assaf wine tasting forum, TN in Hebrew are available on-line)
This wine was at 100$ here in Israel, a tag that it took some real thinking before the organizer paid that for a wine from SA, a country well known for exporting everyday low cost wines.

Eli

Interesting read!

Last time I tasted the 1998 Kanonkop Pinotage (in April 2007) I thought it was fading and I did note a barnyardy note to it. I see I have one bottle left so I must open that...

I have today tasted my first 0kanagen Pinotage from Iniskillin in Oliver, BC.

A totally different wine, very light and fruity. Nice wine which I'd be pushed to spot it in a blind tasting.

>> 2) (My wine) Cheesy nose, funky, white grapefruit, pears, passion fruit, fennel starfruit and grass. Big bodied but balanced. Melissa: "my new breakfast wine!" Took some doing to get the group to zero in on Siegerrebbe, and they were stunned when they found out it's origins: a vineyard on Lake Whatcom, which is practically downtown Bellingham comparatively speaking. 2010 Terranova.

You reminded me....
My nephew Jim Zoehrer, who lives in (actually near) Blaine, gave me a bottle when they were down for a 4th of July family party.
Washington, Puget Sound, San Juan Vineyards, San Juan Island, Estate grown Siegerrebe, 2009
Very pleasant! Pale yellow color, light texture. Tastes like a cross between a white Burg and a SB, only not quite. 13.3% alcohol

I didn't get the cheesy nose, but then my nose is mostly notable by its absence. I grabbed another glass of it tonight (it's been lurking in the refrigerator) and it held up beautifully. A bit more SBish tonight, but if someone had told me blind it was a Semillon, I'd probably have thought, "Hmm. A bit weird for a Semillon, but not impossible." I do like the wine! It was a great fit with petrale sole and french fries Friday, and fine with a ham slice and coleslaw tonight. (It's been warm this weekend!)

John