Pinotage: 100yrs Old This Year

Despite most of the industry claiming 1925 as the date of the birth of Pinotage, the correct year is 1924. This article appeared in Die Burger, the world’s largest Afrikaans daily newspaper and can thus rightfully be assumed as fact. This version was loosely translated from the more poetic Afrikaans.

Right in its own kraal, the South African wine industry is always looking for a reason to throw a party, celebration, or shindig. The establishment of the country’s wine industry on February 2, 1659, is annually celebrated with solemn reverence. Then once each year’s grape harvest is complete, cheerful gatherings take place at the cellars where vineyard and cellar workers – despite the fatigue of three months of hard work and long hours – let loose properly.

And when a farm unveils its latest vintage wines, the festivities kick off anew. This year, 2024, however, in my opinion, is an epic year for the South African wine industry deserving full-scale celebration. Because it’s precisely 100 years since the grape variety Pinotage originated – here in the Cape. Not only is it the country’s national grape variety, but our Pinotage wines are known worldwide, with countries like America and New Zealand even planting the variety.

In fact, of all the wine-producing countries outside the vineyard’s traditional home in Europe, South Africa is the only one to create its own grape variety that can be considered a global force in terms of wine offerings. And its name is Pinotage. The “father” of Pinotage is Abraham Izak Perold, the ingenious viticulturist who was associated with Stellenbosch University and later the KWV. He was a scientist with a restless and creative soul, earnestly seeking better vineyard conditions in the Cape and the ideal grape varieties to plant in the right places. Perold’s many deeds and actions are recorded in the book “Abraham Izak Perold – Wegwyser van ons Wingerdbou” by R.U. Kenney, and it is here that it is noted that the wise wine man brought Pinotage into being in 1924.

This was done by crossing two French grape varieties, namely the noble Burgundian variety Pinot Noir and the hardy cultivar Cinsault, which in Perold’s time in the Cape was known as Hermitage. The fruit born from this ambitious combination was thus named Pinotage. With no history or references, several Stellenbosch wine farmers began planting the “new” grape variety. Among them was one Paul Sauer from Kanonkop wine farm, who happened to be one of Perold’s first viticulture students.

However, Pinotage only made its debut as wine from the 1959 vintage under the Lanzerac label. Since then, Pinotage has grown into one of the cornerstones of the South African wine industry, widely planted, and its wines of Cape origin found on shelves around the world. A few years ago in Beaune, the capital of the grand wine region of Burgundy, I stumbled upon a few bottles of Pinotage (Kanonkop) in an upscale wine shop. When I asked the owner why this wine among all the offerings of fine French wines, he said: “Because it’s your country – South Africa’s – greatest contribution to civilization. And civilization is indeed wine, oui monsieur?”

Once the parties start, those words along with that wine is certainly on my lips.