Kanonkop Black Label Pinotage: a 13-vintage vertical of this South African icon

‘If you don’t like Pinotage, crucify the producer, not the variety,’ advised Johann Kriege.

Not one person gathered at London’s 67 Pall Mall would have been game enough to do that to the co-owner of Kanonkop Wine Estate. Certainly not after the landmark 13-vintage vertical of its iconic Black Label Pinotage.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of the complete 13-wine vertical of Kanonkop’s Black Label Pinotage, plus two Estate Pinotage wines

It was the first time the complete set of wines, first made in 2006, was presented to the public, in characteristic modesty by winemaker Abrie Beeslaar. ‘We are very unpretentious at Kanonkop,’ Beeslaar said. ‘We don’t have a cellar like Bordeaux.’

‘Black Label developed from the soil upwards. Not the boardroom downwards. The vineyards showed me what to do. This is the root of Black Label.’

‘This wine is unique – not necessarily better than the Estate Pinotage we were already making – but I just wanted to show people what old-vine Pinotage tasted like. A quality red wine that also happens to be Pinotage.’

It’s fair to say Pinotage has had a bit of a bad rap – and in the beginning this included winemakers as well as consumers.

‘A lot of people hated it,’ said Beeslaar. ‘Only a few, like Beyers Truter {Beeslaar’s predecessor at Kanonkop], stuck with it. Pinotage is a challenging bugger: the highest pH, the fastest ripening, the fastest fermenter…

‘God created perfect fruit, but we messed it up in the cellar in the 1990s. We had our own idea of what we thought was a South African wine style, but we didn’t understand Pinotage in those days,’ he added.

That, and the ‘reality’ of leafroll virus, contributed to Pinotage’s reputation as a simple, rustic Cape red, often with a rubbery, bitter taste. Kanonkop, through Truter – known as Mr Pinotage – and now Beeslaar, have been at the forefront of the variety’s turnaround.

The birth of Black Label Pinotage

A crossing of Cinsault and Pinot Noir created in 1924, Pinotage was first planted by Kanonkop in 1953 (Block 202) and its first commercial wine was released 20 years later.

This original 3.8ha low-lying vineyard of dry-farmed bushvines – the only ones on the farm planted on a northern slope – are among the oldest Pinotage vines in the Cape, now 69 years old.

Because Kriege ‘didn’t believe in doing a family reserve or cellarmaster reserve‘, these old vines were blended into Kanonkop’s Estate Pinotage.

But Beeslaar, who joined Kanonkop in 2002 and took over from Truter in 2003, convinced the Krieges (Johann and brother Paul) to ‘do something special’ with the vineyard.

In each of 2006, 2007 and 2008, 1,000 bottles were made from these vines and the quality was soon realised. Black Label was born.

Sadly the financial crisis hit in 2009 and that vintage was skipped. But there has been a release every year since, producing just 7,000 to 8,000 bottles. Between 12,000 and 15,000 six-bottle cases are made each vintage of the Estate Pinotage.

Since the first release in 2006, Black Label has been aged between 16 and 18 months in 80% new oak. ‘But you can see that in the older wines it doesn’t show,’ Beeslaar asserted. ‘The winemaker’s thumbprint should never be left on the wine. We always try to show the terroir first.’

The spoken word

Johann Kriege on wine pairing: ’The best food and wine match I’ve ever had for Pinotage was deep-fried squid heads and wasabi. Pinotage can handle heat and spice where other reds can’t.’

Abrie Beeslaar on new oak: ‘Winemakers are moving away from oak because they want consumers to drink their wines earlier. The only people who don’t use new oak either can’t handle it or can’t afford it. Oak adds value to the final product.’

Kanonkop Black Label Pinotage: a complete 13-vintage vertical

NB: the 2009 vintage was not made

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