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Pinotage wine variety in Australia

Pinotage is a red wine variety which was bred in the 1920s in South Africa from a cross between the red wine varieties Pinot Noir and Cinsaut.

Pinotage is cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsaut

This variety is a major contributor to the South Africa wine industry. Lesser areas are grown in California and New Zealand and it plays a cameo role a few other countries.

The cross was made to try to combine the wine quality of Pinot Noir with the high-yielding ability of Cinsaut. These deliberate crosses are rarely successful. The shuffling of genes is too complex for accurate predictions of the outcomes to be predicted. In the case of Pinotage however, a useful result was obtained.

Good Pinotage wines are very good. They retain, or maybe constrain, the wild rich flavours to make lighter red styles or sometimes deep rich reds.

Two problems which detract from quality of some wines made from this variety are over-aggressive tannins and volatile acidity.

Pinotage is also used to make Port style wines, sparkling wines, roses and sometimes as a component of blended white wines.

Pinotage comment by Oz Clarke

The truth is that the Pinotage variety can be used to make truly unpleasant wines, or some very good wines, or, in fact, plenty of ordinary stuff in between.

Australian WIneries using Pinotage

Just a few Australian wineries have shown any interest in the variety. The field for new varieties is crowded and it seems others have more viticultural and marketing potential.

Barrecas Geographe
Bike and Barrell Alpine Valleys
Billy Button Alpine Valleys
Jilly Wines New England
O'Leary Walker Clare Valley
Oak Works Riverland
Ravens Croft Wines Granite Belt
Rymill Coonawarra Coonawarra
Spring Spur Alpine Valleys
Thick as Thieves Yarra Valley
Toppers Mountain New England
Whyworry Wines New England

Updated 23 October

As a rare variety Pinotage is included in the Rare Ozzies book. It includes comments by winemaker Phil Barrecas about his winery's experience with Pinotage.