Pinotage

Pinotage is South Africa's signature red wine grape: a 1925 cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut (then known in the Cape as "Hermitage", which gives the name its second half). Bred at Stellenbosch University, it ripens early and easily in the warm Cape and yields a deeply coloured, full-bodied red built around dark bramble fruit, plum and a distinctive smoky, earthy character. Made carefully it is rich and savoury with notes of blackberry, mulberry and sweet spice; pushed too hard it can show a sharp, acetone-like or rubbery edge that long divided critics. A modern, oak-driven "coffee" style — all roasted mocha, chocolate and vanilla — has won it a new commercial following, and it remains the proud, polarising emblem of the South African wine industry.