Still a Pinotage hater?

In response to the 9 July posting on Pendock Uncorked regarding the closure of Wine magazine, “Boetie” commented “With the luxury of hindsight, Wine magazine lost their way when they abandoned pinotage in favor of shiraz. They sacrificed their South African identity to become yet another wine magazine.”

If Wine magazine had stayed faithful to the Pinotage cause, would it still be in business? When I last checked, Vergelegen’s André van Rensburg and Eben Sadie of Columella and Palladius fame had still not opted to work with the variety. Or Marc Kent of Boekenhoutskloof, for that matter.

In some quarters, I am and always will be a Pinotage hater on account of the role I had in getting Wine magazine to forsake Pinotage in favour of the Shiraz Challenge back in 2004. Conversely, other observers accused me of a fairly significant flip-flop when I suggested in the December 2010 issue of UK publication Decanter that “today’s crop is worthy of a fresh look”.


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