The resurgence of Pinot noir is being driven not only by accessibility, writes CLIFFORD ROBERTS, but also by awareness of the environment that shapes it.
‘Why are you so into Pinot?’ asks Maya, leaning closer to Miles. ‘It’s like a thing with you.’
It’s late-evening and the couple are alone on the veranda.
‘I don’t know,’ he replies. ‘It’s a hard grape to grow. As you know. It’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. Pinot needs constant care and attention and in fact can only grow in specific little tucked-away corners of the world. And only the most patient and nurturing growers can do it really, can tap into Pinot’s most fragile, delicate qualities.’
Then Miles adds one of the most memorable quotes in the cult film Sideways.
‘Only when someone has taken the time to truly understand its potential can Pinot be coaxed into its fullest expression. And when that happens, its flavours are the most haunting and brilliant and subtle and thrilling and ancient on the planet.’
The words come back to me as I stand on a steep gravel track at Creation Wines in the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge. A brief shower has passed, and blue sky reappears though whisps of cloud linger on the peak of the Babilonstoring, the region’s highest. They remind me of the tufts of wool caught on barbs around the sheep pens I encountered earlier, along with misty fingers slowly receding from the land.
This is one of those tucked-away corners so rare – but renowned – for outstanding Pinot noir. How it came to be so, is an important part of the story. In a 2024 essay, Dr Paul Nugent reflects on the ‘curious history’ of terroir in South Africa, pointing to several developments that contributed to the greater recognition of the role that aspects such as climate, location and aspect play on vineyards.
One of them was that post-1990s, while some farmers ‘fixated on particular cultivars and planted them on existing farms’, others – notably in the cool climate zone of Hemel-en-Aarde – found completely new locations where varieties were better matched with their environment.
No-one knows the full extent of nature’s fundamental processes, but standing where I am at Creation, one certainly gets a sense of it all.
At this time of the year, the vines are bare, but deep in the earth, the roots scour the soils for nutrients. The bugs above ground and in the soil are undeterred by the late winter sprinkle a few minutes ago. Pink, white, blue and yellow flowerheads buzz with the frenetic activity of nectar gatherers. A gentle breeze tugs at the leafy stalks, an invisible echo of waves rolling in along the nearby coastline.
I scan the fynbos-covered mountainsides with the white, gravelly tears and ridges of sandstone that meet the valley floor of colourful red clay-rich soils, derived from decomposed shale, and pockets of granite. Here and there, streams flow, negotiating a myriad of small landings like a cautious hiker.
The cosmic scale somehow feels more palpable here. Indeed, the Babilonstoring is part of a mountain range that looks, from space, like ripples on the surface of a lake, except that it formed at an infinitely slower rate. Some 300 to 250 million years ago, the unrelenting crush of massive forces pushed landmasses into each other. These subsequently rifted and fractured during the break-up of Western Gondwanaland, around 130 million years ago.
All this plays out in the wine from here, and somehow the effect is surprisingly plain to see. Pinot noir is typically light-to-medium in colour. Its lower tannin is often the reason the wine is a favoured first stop for newcomers. Except, Pinot noir remains one of the wine world’s great classics too, thanks to the elegance, depth and complexity that it is also capable of.
As it turns out, being ‘into Pinot’, as Maya put it, isn’t terribly hard at all.