South Africa
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A superb wine with red fruit flavours. Big, elegant and ripe tannin structure. It will over time show more secondary and forest floor characteristics.
Food Pairing: Red Meat, Aged Cheese.
The Pinotage vines are bush trained and yields are low at 4-6 tons per hectare. Bunches are destalked and the berries sorted to remove any rotten or unripe ones and fermentation on skins is a brief three days. After malolactic fermentation the wine is aged in new and second fill French oak barriques.
Kanonkop in Stellenbosch is one of South Africa’s most prestigious estates, estate bottling its first wines in 1973 but growing for the local cooperative for many decades prior to this.
The name Kanonkop is derived from a hillock (kop) on the Simonsberg mountain above the wine estate from where, during the 17th and 18th centuries, a cannon (kanon) was fired to announce the arrival of sailing ships entering Table Bay.
The roar of the cannon would be the signal to local farmers, who were waiting to make the 50-kilometer journey to the harbour, to load up their wagons with fresh fruit and vegetables to barter their produce.
Today the estate comprises 95ha with 50% planted with Pinotage, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7.5% Cabernet Franc and 7.5% Merlot.
Kanonkop are particularly renowned for their Paul Sauer label, a Bordeaux style blend and also their Pinotage. The latter variety has its critics, but they have proved them all wrong. In 1991 Beyers Truter was named the Robert Mondavi International Winemaker of the year at the International Wine & Spirit Competition for his 1989 Kanonkop Pinotage.
Pinotage is South Africa’s unique invention created in 192os as a crossing of Pinot Noir and Cinsault (then called Hermitage). It’s fair to say it hasn’t always had a good reputation amongst critics but Kanonkop have dedicated themselves to show it can produce great wines and they have succeeded.
