Order a Black Label in Bascule Bar at the Cape Grace and it could go one of three ways: you could get a pint of beer, a glass of whisky or a bottle of wine depending on the barman’s assessment of your bibulous profile. Beer will be cheapest: Carling Black Label is made by SA Breweries who brew the top selling UK lager – sales in Blighty last year of 4.1 million pints and nearly 12 billion world-wide – under license. The whisky is 1% of that volume, made by Diageo in Kilmarnock under the Johnnie Walker brand in volumes of around 130 million bottles. Wine volumes are five orders of magnitude smaller again, made by Kanonkop from grapes grown on 53 year old Pinotage vines on the Simonsberg and 1000 bottles of the 2006 vintage were made.

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Is this Kanonkop big shot Johann Krige cocking a snook at those UK pundits who call Pinotage “vile” by giving it the same name as one of the UK’s favourite bevvies? Unlikely. A more likely explanation for black comes from the noir of Pinot Noir, one of the parents of Pinotage. Or Johann’s accountant forecasting a move from the red into the black once the orders from Pretoria flood in. The fresh prince of Pinot, Anthony Hamilton Russell, always said the first icon to come out of SA would be a Pinotage blend and wragtig, here is Kanonkop’s first salvo at icon status.

The wine has been much rumoured and it’s method of distribution will cause more devastation in retail circles than the recent earthquake in Haiti. For Johann has bypassed the usual distribution channels and given it to the Wade Bales Wine Society and cybercellar.com to flog, limiting buyers to a maximum purchase of 36 bottles each. The ultimate aim is to start an en primeur system of tasting and buying the wine while it is still in barrel like they do in Bordeaux.

Another turn up for the books is the vintage, with 2006 hardly as auspicious as the two on either side. But one proof of excellence is to make a great wine in a kak vintage. The tasting note recommends “red meat or spicy style Asian dishes” so Johann treated Cape Town luvvies to a snoek braai and a vertical tasting of ten vintages ending with the Black at the launch yesterday. Some luvvies grumbled that there were no take-aways. As Neil Young sang it

Out of the blue
and into the black
You pay for this,
but they give you that
And once you’re gone,
you can’t come back
When you’re out of the blue
and into the black.