LosGatosObserver.com

LOMA PRIETA WINERY’S Paul Kemp is a pinot pioneer. But not that pinot. I’m talking pinotage. The pinotage grape is relatively unknown outside South Africa, where it was developed 85 years ago as a cross between pinot noir and cinsault. Cinsault is also known as hermitage, hence the portmanteau pinotage.
Last week, fellow Wine Column contributor Steve Palopoli wrote about the gold medals won by Santa Cruz Mountains pinot noir makers, including tiny Loma Prieta Winery. Loma Prieta Winery has won gold medals for its Saveria Vineyard (located in Corralitos) Pinot Noir every year since 2004. Safe to say, Kemp has the pinot noir thing down pretty well. And judging by his first vintage of pinotage, he is onto something delicious with pinotage as well.
His 2008 pinotage is made from grapes grown by his mentor Paul Wofford on Lodi’s Amorosa Vineyard in the San Joaquin Valley. Kemp made only 51 cases (two barrels), and they quickly sold out.
“Everybody just loved this stuff,” he says.
I can see why. Kemp aged the wine in new French oak and added 10 percent pinot noir. It has the soft fruit and perfumed flavors of pinot noir and the backbone and earthy, spicy notes of a syrah or cabernet sauvignon. If pinot noir is described as a feminine wine and cabernet sauvignon as a masculine wine (yes, these are lame gender stereotypes; female soft, male brawny), then Kemp’s pinotage exhibits traits of both. It’s got yin and yang going on in equal measure.
In spite of its relatively high 15 percent alcohol content, pinotage is not the fat fruit grenade you might expect. Yes, it’s a big wine loaded with juicy, round grape and blueberry flavors, but the acid and tannins balance and tame what could otherwise be a sloppy, lip-gloss-covered kiss of a wine. As pinotage decants in the glass, it seems to get a little leaner and racier.
That lively acidity makes pinotage great with food, too. I had it with grilled salmon one night and with orzo and garbanzo beans, kale and cauliflower (a rather creative use of my pantry and refrigerator contents, if I do say so) another night, and it matched up well with both.
Unlike South African pinotage, Kemp’s wine lacks the telltale banana flavor. He says he didn’t like the few South African pinotages he tried. He is out to make a California pinotage.
So taken is Kemp with pinotage that he has decided to grow his own. He has grafted more than 700 underperforming cabernet sauvignon and merlot vines on his property to pinotage from Amorosa Vineyard cuttings, making him the only pinotage grower in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
“I don’t know if I’m going to start a new fad or anything, but I really like it,” he says.
While the 2008 is sold out, Kemp has 11 barrels of 2009 still in the cellar, so keep your eyes out for that opportunity. If it’s as good as the ’08, it’s sure to go fast as well. But what I’m looking forward to is the first vintage of Kemp’s estate-grown pinotage, still a few years away.
Loma Prieta’s location and climate are special in that they allow Kemp to grow both fog-loving pinot noir and heat-happy cabernet sauvignon. Pinotage is also a hot-weather grape, and Kemp hopes it will thrive under the vineyard’s ample southern exposure. How the vines will fare in the Los Gatos hills is open to question, but Kemp is confident his experiment will bear fruit—and delicious wine.

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