If you'd said to Professor Abraham Izak Perold back in 1925 that his backyard experiment at his home in Stellenbosch would one day be growing in Ukraine, and bottled in Luxembourg, you might have been met with silence. Yet that is the unlikely path of Pinotage. South Africa’s most controversial grape has travelled further than most of us realise; the grape that once fought for acceptance at home is now finding new ones abroad. It goes back to 1925, a fusion of Pinot Noir and Cinsault (then Hermitage) brought together to become Pinotage. It wasn't until the late 1940s that the first Pinotage was released commercially and by 1959 it had already claimed a major trophy at the Cape Wine Show. An icon was born.
Yet icons rarely arrive without argument.
Pinotage has long divided opinion. Mention it in a cellar here in South Africa and you will likely get a reaction before you get a tasting note. Pinotage is one of the few varieties that can cause a room of winemakers to shift in their chairs. Some defend it fiercely. Others recall the era of heavy-handed extraction and charred oak, when the wines smelt faintly of burnt tyres. Consumers, too, tend to fall into two camps. You either love it, or you really don’t. For South Africa as a country, however, Pinotage can be said to be a statement of independence. We’re in a global industry that is crowded with French varieties, so to contribute to the wine world something that is unmistakably local, and distinctly South African, matters.
Even if it was not universally loved within our own borders, it stood, and still stands, as a reminder that we are capable of adding something original to the world’s vineyard.
What is less often discussed is how that originality has travelled.
Today, Pinotage is planted in regions far beyond the Cape. You can find small pockets in New Zealand, the United States, Israel, and Germany. More unexpectedly, it has found a home in Ukraine and Luxembourg – hardly the first places one associates with a grape born under the South African sun.
On the northern shores of the Black Sea in Ukraine, Beykush Winery has been experimenting with Pinotage as a component to blends, drawing inspiration from the Cape blend. It wasn't until 2018, that they released a Pinotage that they chose not to blend. “The wine itself turned out to be so successful that we decided not to blend it and release it as it is,” they said. At five years of age, they noted, it had not lost freshness and was beginning to show the character of its “father variety” – Pinot Noir – with prunes, spicy herbs and a dusty note reminiscent of South African dirt roads.
Travel a little west to Luxembourg and you will find yet another expression of Pinotage planted where you’d least expect it. Luxembourg is hardly known for its wine production with roughly 12.4 million litres produced annually, and nearly triple that consumed. Yet even here, Pinotage was not only planted but thrived, finding favour as a blending component – its introduction to the region owed to Domaine Schumacher-Knepper. It solidifies the notion that, like South Africans, Pinotage carries adaptability in its veins. We can take root, thrive and leave our mark wherever in the world we go, overcoming challenges and carrying a sense of home with us even far from the Cape.
That producers in Luxembourg and Ukraine would look to Pinotage is telling. It is a grape that adapts. In warmer sites it can be plush and broad, ripe with dark fruit and spice; in cooler climates it tightens, showing more acidity, structure and savoury detail. For anyone who dismissed it after encountering one overripe or over-extracted example, a northern hemisphere expression might be that revelation you need.
Pinotage will always be a controversial grape. That’s part of its character. But maybe the more interesting question for industry professionals isn’t whether we personally love it, but what its journey actually shows us. When producers in Ukraine or Luxembourg taste their Pinotage, they say it reminds them of South Africa – the sun, the dusty dirt roads, and the warmth of the people. That’s a really rare thing for a plant to do. Think about it: drinking a Cabernet Sauvignon won’t make you feel like you’re walking up to a Chateau in Bordeaux, and a Sauvignon Blanc won’t make you feel the ocean breeze of the South Island of New Zealand. But it seems Pinotage has been able to do that, across terroirs and across countries.
Pinotage may not be universally adored at home, but it’s ours. We have contributed a grape to the wine world that is capable of storytelling and evoking emotions of our land, it can carry you back home, even when it’s grown thousands of kilometres away. Born in Stellenbosch, it now grows in Ukraine, gives backbone to blends in Luxembourg, and keeps pushing expectations wherever it lands. And that’s a reminder we can be proud of: like Pinotage, South Africans are adaptable and resilient: able to thrive, make an impact, and carry a piece of home wherever we go – and share that piece of home with new friends along the way.