Celebrating with Pinotage

Today is a day of celebration and indulgence. I completed a week of changing my eating habits.  I’m celebrating a week of no processed foods, no caffeine or wine and I feel fantastic!  Eating clean is a very strict way of living. I’ve decided to eliminate processed foods and eat more fresh fruit, vegetables and lean meat.  However, NO COFFEE! NO WINE! Yikes, that’s not fun! I love my coffee and most importantly I LOVE MY WINE! 🙂

I arrive to The Professional’s house and he pulls out two wines- a VA red blend (Willowcroft Fitzrada) and a 2011 Oracle Pinotage. Willowcroft DONE IT! Pinotage…Hmm…I’ve only had it once and that was a couple of years ago. Yes, I can remember when I first tasted a wine. I was pouring wine for the Washington Wine Academy. If I recall correctly, it’s a single grape variety that originated from South Africa, fruit-forward red and sometimes sweet. Let’s see if my memory serves me correct; time for research.

Before I continue, I have to share that an article from the Wine Spectator website has me all jacked up! The writer said that many of us are referring to wine and grapes incorrectly. A varietal is the wine made from a single grape variety. Chardonnay is a variety, not varietal.  YUP! My mind wants to say varietal; however, the newly learned lesson is telling me “You’re referring to it incorrectly.” WHICH IS IT! The type A in me is coming out and I want to be accurate.

Research time- Pinotage is a grape “variety” that was created by Abraham Perold in 1925. Pinotage is the signature grape of South Africa, which only consists of 6% of South Africa’s plantings. Pinotage wines have smoky and earthy flavors. It’s often used as a blend, to produce fortified wine like ports and red sparkling wines; red sparkling wine, that sounds interesting. There’s even a Pinotage Club and a Pinotage Association (www.pinotage.org).

By the way, it appears the Wine Spectator author is correct; a grape is referred to as a variety not varietal. Confession, while researching, I had a sip.  I was just overcome with a hot flash that had no fury. During the last 5 days of eating clean, I had very little hot flashes. One sip of wine and BANG HOT FLASH!

Round 2 – Spicy with a hint of sweetness on the nose; woodsy-smoky flavors and nice firm tannins.

Round 3 – MY OH MY! This was definitely a good selection! One of the many things I love about my man is he has an excellent wine selection 🙂

P.S.  4th sip was very smooth, let this wine breath for at least 20 minutes and by the way, I lost 5lbs. 🙂
Salute!