Pinotage -- House of Mandela

After days of drinking some of the finest Merlot in the world, we take an excursion today to the Western Cape Wine of Origin (WO) classification of South Africa. We're visiting the House of Mandela today -- yes that Mandela family where they produce wine from the grape that is most commonly associated with South Africa and South Africa alone, Pinotage.

When we last explored this grape nearly three months ago, we learned that Pinotage is, in fact, a hybrid of Pinot Noir and Cinsault (until about 100 years ago, Cinsault was known in South Africa as Hermitage and from there we get the -age for Pinotage).

In this part of the world, the wine, particularly the red varietals, have a very distinct expression of terroir. If you pause. you can taste the local soil in the wine. Loaded with granite from volcanic magma during the Cambrian Period as well as kaolin and iron oxide in the clay, yet nearly phosphorus-depleted, the soils are ancient and distinct to this region apparently due to a severe disruption of tectonic plates that caused that magma to flow.

The House of Mandela is a relatively new wine producer. Of course, they were not able to start producing on any real basis until the end of Apartheid and the freeing of the family patriatch lovingly known as Madiba from the clan of his ancestry. While they produce a variety of wines typical to South Africa, today we are focused on the Phumla Pinotage (Phumla is the name of Nelson and Evelyn (his first wife) Mandela's fourth child).

We are pleased to have several bottles from recent vintages opened for us. They vary significantly in their character and frankly, this is not unusual for newer wines produced by newer winemakers as they experiment.

Characteristic of all are the noticeable acidity and moderate, slightly rounded tannins. We get loads of black plum and blackberry. On the 2017, we also get notes of coffee and cocoa while the 2016 is somewhat immersed in bacon fat.

While both dishes as well as a number of others have been prepared for us, we love the '17 with a coffee-rubbed steak while the '16 seemed to do better with a bacon-cheddar burger. In either case, enjoy these wines from this historic family.




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