Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve
Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve is a full-bodied red wine which is noted for its distinctive purple coloration and pleasant fruit flavours, including plum. Unlike the Pinotage Standard, which is a wine produced to be cheap and easily available, the Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve was created to be a top-of-the-range wine which was of the highest quality, and very distinctly South African. The company making the wine, Beyerskloof, have a long history of wine growing and making, and it has been producing a number of internationally recognised wines in recent years, including a range of Pinotage wines designed to introduce beginners to this drink. As the younger wines start to mature in the bottles, it has become evident that a new season of attractive and elegant Pinotage wines have been developed. One of the most special is the wine known as Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve.
The origins of Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve lie in the South African wine valleys owned by the Beyerskloof Wine Estate. Pinotage itself is a unique wine found in South Africa, and was developed by combining Pinot Noir and Cinsaut grapes. While some experts from other countries consider Pinotage to have a rather harsh quality, there are a growing number of people who think that the new generation of Pinotage wine makers have found a way to make the wine truly sophisticated, and the Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve is designed to illustrate this to everyone.
Pinotage Reserve is made from vines which have been growing on the Beyer’s farm for an average of 15 years, giving the crop a maturity and sense of place that can easily be tasted in the rich wine. In some of the Pinotage Reserve vintages, the hot, dry summers of the current decade have caused the berries to become small and particularly flavourful. One particular example of this is the 2006 Pinotage Reserve, which was made using grapes which had been drown during a long dry period which was also very warm, and these gained a lot of flavour from those conditions. Once the grapes had been picked, the wine was placed into specially created stainless steel barrels in order to ferment, and is then placed in barrels made of French oak and allowed to mature for over a year and a half. This has given it an alcohol level of 14.5 percent, and an acidity level of 5.3 grams per litre.
There are a number of different flavours in the wine alongside the plum, and there are several dark berries including blackberry and cassis flavours, which can be picked out from amongst the nose and taste of the wine. In addition, Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve is aged in French oak barrels, which gives a well-rounded note of earthiness to the flavours. With its fantastic long finish which brings out the tannins from the grapes, it is due to be a long-lasting wine which can be enjoyed on its own or as an accompaniment to food, particularly red meats and food with an abundance of spices.
