Travelers' Intercom

Poor pinotage

In the article on East Africa in the March ’07 issue, on page 45 the author gave a description of the wines he tried in Zimbabwe: “. . . some of which was drinkable and some of which was truly horrible (e.g. something called ‘pinotage’).”

Actually, pinotage is a fine varietal popular at the best wineries in South Africa. It has now been transplanted to other wine-producing parts of the world and is becoming more popular. I sampled an excellent pinotage from a Northern California winery just this February.

The problem is not with the pinotage; it’s with the government of Zimbabwe, which confiscated all of the best agricultural properties, including wineries, from those who knew how to run them and gave them to political cronies who didn’t know what they were doing and couldn’t care less if most of the people starved. Much less were they concerned about the quality of wine.

GARY MOCKLI
Chesterfield, MO

From the May 2007 issue.

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