Winemaker Notes
This wine is a deep purple-red color with a bright, enticing nose of cherries, red and black plums, maraschino cherries, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The palate is packed with ripe cherries, black plums, mulberries, orange zest, blackberries, licorice, cedar, and layers of baking spices. It is medium-bodied with juicy fruit, refreshing, balanced acidity, fine-grained tannins, and a long, satisfying finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Plums, cherries and chocolate orange on the nose of this juicy red. It’s full-bodied with ripe tannins. Nicely balanced.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Kanonkop 2023 Stellenbosch Pinotage Kadette sources fruit from selected premium blocks and is matured for 12 months in second- and third-fill barrique, giving more concentration and muscle than the Cape Blend. Dark cherry and black fruit dominate, supported by fresh acidity and gentle wood influence. Even in this more approachable expression, Kanonkop’s heritage of hands-on fermentation and long familiarity with Pinotage shapes a confident.
South Africa’s signature grape, Pinotage is a distinctively earthy and rustic variety. In 1924 viticulturists crossed finicky Pinot Noir and productive, heat-tolerant Cinsault, and created a variety both darker and bolder than either of its parents! Today it is popular in South Africa both as a single varietal wine and in Cape blends. Somm Secret—The name “Pinotage” is a subtle portmanteau. The Pinot part is obvious, but the second half is a bit confusing. In the early 1900s, Cinsault was known in South Africa as “Hermitage”—hence Pinotage.
South Africa’s most famous wine-producing district, Stellenbosch, surrounds the historic town with the same name; fine winemaking here dates back to the late 1600s. Its valleys of granite, sandstone and alluvial loam soils between the towering blue-grey mountains of Stellenbosch, Simonsberg and Helderberg have the capacity to produce beautiful wines from many varieties. The climate is warm Mediterranean, tempered by the cool Atlantic air of nearby False Bay.
Perhaps most well-known for its Pinotage and Bordeaux blends, Stellenbosch also produces noteworthy wines from Syrah, Chenin blanc, Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc. The district’s wards—Banghoek, Bottelary, Devon Valley, Jonkershoek Valley, Papegaaiberg, Polkadraai Hills and Simonsberg-Stellenbosch—all produce distinctive wines from vines with relatively low yields.