No 5 Stars for Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc
The annual, much-anticipated Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc category review was concluded last week and, in the case of Pinot Noir, it showed South Africa’s potential to produce quality wines from a variety of sites.
Surprisingly, Pinots from Walker Bay did not live up to the standard they set last year, where Crystallum wines secured first and second place with two wines from the 2008 vintage, the Crystallum Cuveé Cinema and Crystallum Peter Max, scoring 5 Stars and 4½ Stars respectively.
In 2011, the situation looks different with not one wine from the Walker Bay district managing to secure even a 4 Star rating, with top ratings going to wines from Elgin, Stellenbosch, Darling and Franschhoek.
After assessing the line-up of 32 current-release Pinot Noirs (down from last year’s 40), the panel was disappointed not to find a wine deemed worthy of 5 Stars, with just one wine awarded 4½ Stars. Four wines managed to secure a 4 Star rating.
In the line-up of 35 Cabernet Franc wines, one wine achieved a rating of 4½ Stars with no 4 Stars awarded in this category.
The panel was chaired by wine expert Christian Eedes with the panel comprising of JD Pretorius of Steenberg Vineyards, James Pietersen of Belthazar, Jörg Pfutzner of Fine Wine Events and Jeanri-Tine van Zyl of Wine magazine.
Full results in the June issue of Wine magazine.
