2000 Pinotage Kanonkop Estate

Kanonkop produces about 25,000 cases a year, entirely from estate fruit. Thanks to legendary winemaker Beyers Truter, who has been here since 1981, Kanonkop produces some of South Africa's greatest reds, including two of the country's signature wines, the Paul Sauer cabernet/merlot blend and the pinotage. Their third important wine is their cabernet. Nearly half of the estate's fruit is declassified into its second label, Kadette. Kanonkop's pinotage vines, planted on water-retentive decomposed granite soil with a considerable clay content, average 55 years of age; recently replanted vines have not yet been included in the blend. The pinotage is always high in malic acidity, which means Truter must acidify at the time of fermentation since the finished wines would otherwise be dangerously low in acid.