Doing different things with pinotage

Tastes differ – this is the simple rule that those bold enough to advise others should strive to remember.Take Amarula Cream. I have a somewhat shamefaced love of kitsch cream liqueurs like this, but an admirable friend of mine once remarked that she wouldn’t drink the stuff even if it were poured over Brad Pitt. So when I feel brave in even uncorking the latest offering from KWV, with nothing like Brad available, I remind myself that millions of bottles have probably been made, in confident anticipation of mass success.

Why not? This new wine builds on the rampant success of coffee- and chocolate-flavoured pinotage, of which dozens of allusively-named versions are now available – surely to the despair of the higher-minded Pinotage Association. The flavours are derived from toasty oak, by the way. Other grape varieties have also fallen victim, so we have, for example, Boplaas Tinta Chocolat from tinta barroca, and Vrede en Lust’s Mocholate Malbec.