MICHAEL GREEN’S WINE NOTES #232

Wines and their flavours … and Bertus Fourie at Val de Vie produces coffee pinotage.

Wines have a huge variety of flavours. The English wine writer Tom Stevenson says there are more than 200 identifiable aromas or flavours of wines. Many of these terms are in everyday use among the cognoscenti who sniff and sip knowledgeably. Here are some of them: apple, apricot, banana, blackcurrant, cherry, citrus, grapefruit, melon, plum. From the vegetable world we have wines that taste or smell of asparagus, celery, cucumber, pepper. And to that lot you can add cinnamon, clove, grass, mint, bread, caramel, chocolate, honey, jam.

And if a wine is thoroughly unpleasant, an expert may discover that it has the character of burnt rubber or dirty dishcloth or nail polish.

One flavour that pops up quite often at tastings is coffee, or mocha. A Cape winemaker has taken this hint of a flavour a degree further by producing for some years what he calls a coffee pinotage. He is Bertus Fourie from the Val de Vie estate on the Berg River near Paarl, and his latest coffee wine is called Barista, an Italian term for one who is highly skilled in the blending of coffee (real coffee). The neck of the Barista bottle (which is a screwtop) is decorated with black and white squares, depicting the floors found in most Italian coffee bars.

Bertus explains the background thus: “I stumbled across this type of pinotage, with its distinct coffee and chocolate aromas and flavours, while experimenting with different types of yeasts and oak. I have been working on it since then, and the Barista Pinotage 2009 is undoubtedly my best coffee pinotage to date”.

The wine was made from pinotage grapes grown in the Robertson valley, where the dark, deep-red soils are reckoned to be particularly suitable for this style of wine.

So what does it taste of? Well, of coffee, obviously, plus quite a range of other flavours: chocolate, mulberry, plum, maraschino cherries. I have tried it, and I found it a most distinctive and attractive wine, full-bodied (nearly 14 percent alcohol) and full-flavoured. Like most good wines, it would go well with a wide variety of foods or just by itself. Bertus Fourie says he likes it with a brandy snap filled with blue cheese, Belgian chocolate and roasted coffee beans. They have some exotic tastes down Paarl way.

The estate says that Barista Pinotage 2009 retails for about R60 a bottle, but I have seen it advertised by Makro in Durban at R44. It pays to shop around. Other wines from this estate include Val de Vie 2006, a complex red blend, mainly mourvedre and shiraz, priced at an imposing R480 a bottle. Among the others are a shiraz and a white blend called GVC, which stands for its component grapes, Grenache blanc, Viognier and Clairette blanche. Cellar prices range from R70 to R135 a bottle.

The Val de Vie farm (the name means valley of life) began producing wine in 1825. Its historic manor house and wine cellar have been restored and furnished in French-style décor. Today the estate has 550 residential plots, two top-class polo fields, and facilities for many other events, including a ballroom and other functions rooms. The Las Vegas rock band The Killers will perform there in December and will be followed next year by Elton John.
Tastings, sales, walks and bike trails are offered, and an Italian restaurant has just opened. Phone 021 863 6161. – Michael Green