72 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
JUNE 2018
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK
WINE
QUICK QUIZ: With what country or region do you associate the
following grape varieties?
Furmint, Gewurztraminer, Grüner Veltliner, Malbec, Pinotage,
Sauvignon Blanc, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, Xinomavro, Zinfandel.
If you answered Hungary, Alsace, Austria, Argentina, South Af-
rica, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, Greece and California in that order
— top marks!
Many winegrowing regions have a signature variety that they
excel in and for which they have become internationally known,
even if other regions may have the same variety planted in their
vineyards. (Chardonnay and Riesling are too ubiquitous to claim
signature rights to, and so are Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir
— although I might get an earful from Burgundy lovers about Pi-
not Noir.) And if I have le Australian Shiraz off the list its because
Shiraz, which has been grown for eons in the Rhône valley, is the
same variety as Syrah.
Next question: Which of the above-mentioned grapes is a man-
made crossing of two varietals?
If you answered Pinotage, give yourself a gold star.
In seven years' time, Pinotage will celebrate its 100th birthday.
In 1925, Abraham Izak Perold, the first Professor of Viticulture
at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, made of crossing of two
grapes - the notoriously fickle Pinot Noir, with the easygoing, heat-
resistant and productive Cinsaut from the Rhône Valley. (Pinotage,
incidentally, was one of the 177 grape varieties that Dr. Perold intro-
duced into South Africa which would accord him the uncontested
title as Father for the Modern South African Wine Industry.)
Perold planted four seeds of this morganatic union between the
difficult Pinot Noir and the relaxed Cinsaut in the garden of his
house at the Welgevallen Experimental Farm in Stellenbosch. en
he promptly forgot about them. Two years later he le the univer-
sity to take up a position with South Africa's largest co-operative,
KWV. e fruit of his research might never have come to light had
it not been for a team of students who had been dispatched to the
overgrown garden of Perold's former residence to clean it up.
A young colleague of Perold's, Charlie Niehaus, happened to
be passing the garden as the crew was pulling weeds and noticed
the sprouting seedlings. He took them back to a greenhouse at El-
senburg Agricultural Training Institute, which was then presided
over by Perold's successor, C. J. eron. In 1935, as the vines had
established themselves, eron took them back to their birthplace
at Welgevallen and had them graed onto new rootstock.
| DETOURS |
Pinotage: the Orphan that Survived
In South Africa nearly a century ago, the Pinotage grape was created from a union between Pinot Noir and Cinsaut
