Brindisi & Pinotage

[yvonne johnson]

We bought a few bottles of:

1. Brindisi, Agricole Vallone, 1997.

2. Pinotage, Stellenbosch, 1999

Both wines we found undrinkable. They were not corked, just incredibly sour and the first was the most vegetal tasting wine I've ever tasted and the Pinotage was very vegetal but less so that the Brindisi. Is this what they are supposed to taste like? We opened 2 bottles of the first, thinking the first was damaged in some way, but he second bottle tasted the same. I spoke to the wine shop (I won't name names as I've had no problems with them up to now), and they were not really informative in terms of how this wine should taste. The person at the shop simply suggested that my palate didn't like it and that was that. The shop did offer to exchange the third bottle of Brindisi that we have un-opened.

Any thoughts from those who know a lot more about wine than I do?

[Fat Guy]

2. Pinotage, Stellenbosch, 1999

You're talking about Stellenbosch Vineyards, right? As opposed to some other wine from the Stellenbosch region from another producer? If so, what you're describing sounds all wrong -- in other words it sounds like the wine got cooked or oxidized or something. Here are the vineyard's tasting notes. I've had the wine and agree.

http://www.stellvine.co.za/HTML/ProductCon...intProductID=16

[yvonne johnson]

Thanks for that link, Fat Guy and your comments.

The Pinotage was in fact from Malan Winery

http://www.southernstarz.com/Malan_Bio.htm

I'm inclined to think there was something very wrong with both kinds of wine bought at 2 different stores. Luck of the draw I guess.

[LaNiña]

I went to a wine tasting some weeks ago and had, among some other really good South African wines, a Clos Malverne Pinotage Reserve, which I liked a great deal. My tasting notes: big wine, plum color with ripe berry tastes, somewhat spicey, full-bodied, mouthy, a bit of vanilla in there. Also had a Beyerskloof Pinotage which I enjoyed, but not as interesting as the other - my tasting notes just say medium bodied, sweet berries, some oak, good value.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yvonne - Is that Brindisi as in southeastern Italy heel of the boot?

[Fat Guy]

Pinotage is a good value wine if you like serious extraction. These wines taste a lot bigger than most in their price range. Whether they can match that with complexity on any sort of consistent basis is more of a question mark.

[yvonne johnson]

Yvonne - Is that Brindisi as in southeastern Italy heel of the boot?

Yes, and more specifically it was from Lecce.

To continue the story, I took my unopened bottle of Brindisi back to Union Square Wines, and Katherine was quite helpful. She said if I'd not thrown the contents of the other bottles away she would have smelled the contents, not necessarily tried it. She said she'd keep a note of what I'd said, but she hadn't tasted this one yet. In exchange she gave a Sicilia Colosi 2000. She said it was similar to the brindisi, but being younger it will be lighter. So we'll try that tonight.

Nina, your notes made me chuckle given the contast with ous. We wrote: "1 (probably lucky to get a 1) out of 5, sour, vegetal" as I was writing I was thinking "quite revolting".

[StephenT]

It is quite possible that the pinotage that Yvonne had is not a particularly good wine but that a pinotage from the next door winery is much better. In South Africa each winery usually grows a number of varieties that are usually bottled separately and the general trend is that the decent wineries produce a range of decent wines whereas the lesser wineries produce a range of lesser wines.

So there's no guarantee that a particular variety from a particular region will be good if you don't go for a particular winery. Well that's my take on the situation. I used to live in SA and when I go back on holiday I try to sample wines that are quite expensive by SA standards but are reasonable by UK/US standards because I couldn't afford them before. Of course the prices often rise drastically once they leave the shores and are exported to earn some "real currency".