TN: Geekiest Wine ever- Carbonic Pinotage- Costa del Swart "Fauxjolais" 2020

Found this super unusual wine at a local shop. I couldn’t even find the producer on Cellar Tracker at all. Seems that I’m the first person to review anything made by them, though they’re on Vivino. Anyway, I picked it up purely bc it was so unusual. Turned out to be rather enjoyable. Here are my notes plus some pictures:

"Not writing these notes because this wine is particularly profound, but because it is so unique, quirky, and I’m the only one writing anything about it on Cellar Tracker. Also, this must be the geekiest wine I’ve every encountered. Carbonic Pinotage is like the vinous equivalent of a handlebar-mustache-sporting, fixed-gear-bike-riding, artisanal-pickle-making, Brooklynite (a reference you might get if you’ve been to Brooklyn NY or Portland OR).

While I love the name “Faux-jolais”, and I get that it’s a reference to the fermentation techniques used in Beaujolais, this wine is not particularly Beaujolais-like at all. At least no Beaujolais I’ve ever had-- maybe it’s like the pale Beaujolais of yesteryear as described by Kermit Lynch in Adventures On The Wine Route. I have no idea, we’ll have to ask Kermit.

It is very pale colored, like a dark rosé, like a Cerasuolo or Poulsard from the Jura. Completely translucent (see picture). The nose is a bit reductive upon opening, but opens nicely and blossoms with air over 30 min or so. The nose intensity is moderate, light and very fresh, almost like it’s about to fall apart, but manages to hold together. Aromas of cranberry, strawberry, pink Jolly Ranchers, with a background of pungent herbs (rosemary?), and juicy fruit gum. Not a trace of the acetone that Pinotage is infamous for.

In the mouth, it’s light in body. There is no tannin, and no discernible alcohol. The flavors are predominately red fresh and candied fruits, though not overwhelmingly so. There is an interesting refreshing bitterness on the finish, kind of like an Italian wine- a bit like a digestif. Surprisingly, the length is medium, not super short. All in all, a geeky, enjoyable wine that went fabulously with a weeknight homemade curry. Best with a light chill."

Cool note, thanks! It had me browse the web…

From the web:
Certified sustainable, Vegan, Natural wine
Hand-harvested estate fruit
Soil: Koffiellip
Vineyard planted in 1969 (average vine age: 52 years)
Vinification: Carbonic maceration, fermented with native yeasts in 225hL French oak barrels
Aging: In cement & bottle

https://www.canopywines.com/r/wine-thief/fauxjolais/2020/
A sommelier-winemaker collaboration between Ewan Mackenzie & Christa Von la Chevallerie of Huis van Chevallerie. This wine brings back the old-school joy of Beaujolais-Nouveau… but with a South African vibe, utilizing early-harvested Pinotage.

https://www.kingscountywines.com/fauxjolais-2020-wine-thief.html
Umami-bound full-carbo pinotage. Pale, chillable, meaty. Summer BBQ vibes.

Simply delicious. Bursting with bright red fruit cranberry, raspberry and strawberry as well.

From Huis van Chevallerie on Facebook:
Light, fresh, tangy, fruity - truly Beaujolais-Nouveau in style … so here’s hoping we ruffle a few French feathers!

https://winethief.co.za/storyofwinethief/
The Wine Thief wine brand combines a Sommelier’s passion with the art of premium, small-batch winemaking. Each wine is individually curated alongside some of South Africa’s most esteemed winemakers from across the Western Cape. The beautiful part of this side of the company is not only working out in these different terroirs but the collaboration of sommelier and winemaking knowledge in order to experiment in different styles of product innovation. Being able to draw on knowledge gained from over 20 years in the hospitality industry, from cask-conditioned real ale making, having professional chef training, and being the Sommelier at one of South Africa’s premium restaurants, La Colombe, has spurred on a truly unique passion to innovate and create.

In regards to the wines themselves, there is a unique focus on single cultivar expression, particularly with the lesser-known cultivars such as Marsanne or Mourvèdre which are often blended, or rarely even expressed by themselves. Here is where the wines can be of service to any gastronomic experience – whether you’re entertaining at home and looking for something to excite your guests, or whether you are a sommelier on the restaurant floor, sharing with customers that perfect pairing you’ve come up with for one of Chef’s creations – the wines of The Wine Thief, are there to proudly offer something truly unique and inspiring.

Excellent work! Thank you. And interestingly, there is a reference to those old school Beaujolais. So maybe this wine is more like traditional Beaujolais than I initially thought. I think the oldest Beaujolais I’ve had is a 2004, so I don’t have any reference.

Only one way to make it geekier - sans soufre!

What is traditional Beaujolais? I’ve understood that lots of old school producers make very traditional Beaujolais and can’t think of that many producers I would call “modern”.

And calling a carbonic Pinotage “geekiest wine ever” sounds quite extreme. They make lots of them in South Africa and none of the wines I’ve tasted has felt particularly geeky to me. Just another regular carbonic red.

Although Lammershoek’s LAM Pinotage was a superb wine back when Craig Hawkins was the winemaker there.

Haha brilliant minds, made this wine for a friend’s wine bar and told him we had to call it fauxjolais:

I guess by “traditional” I’m referring to the Beaujolais as described by Kermit Lynch in Adventures on the Wine Route. I don’t have the book in front of me, so can’t remember specific producers off the top of my head, but he describes a Beaujolais made decades ago that seems quite different than the stuff available in the shops today. As I said above, I’ve never had this style of wine, so can’t comment from personal experience. But he describes wine with color and body akin to rosé, which this Fauxjolais definitely was. Seems like maybe the winemakers here were referencing that sort of style.

By “geekiest wine ever”, I was just referring to the fact that this wine seemingly deliberately appeals to a very narrow slice of wine drinkers, and those are the wine geeks (basically, the people on this board). Here in the US, Pinotage has very little market presence. I doubt many casual consumers around here would have heard of it. Carbonic maceration, likewise, is something very people would know about. Sure, plenty of wines are made that way, but few advertise it and make it a feature of the wine. The name “Fauxjolais” likewise would only make sense to people who know a lot more than the average person about wine. The winemakers here specifically are marketing an unusual grape, made in an unusual way (at least for Pinotage), and giving it an esoteric name, in order to appeal to a tiny niche of “geeky” wine drinkers. That’s why I called it geekiest wine ever. Are there geekier wines? Probably. Call my title a WB version of clickbait.

You could’ve summed it all up just by this.

And I guess a wine like this sounds geeky from a US-centric perspective where lots of stuff in the market is domestic and nobody’s even heard of carbonic maceration.

Although we don’t get much South African stuff here (a shame, they make some superb wines down there), I still can’t see much geek factor here. Most wine geeks I know would probably just shrug at this wine.

Now something completely unexpected like a Pinotage aged sous voile or macerated with the skins for 6 months or something else that no other winemaker has done - that’s what I’d call geeky!

I’m going to pick on you. You always seem to enter threads to find a place to point out something you disagree with, is inaccurate (even if it’s an insignificant inaccuracy), or to show how much you know. Why do you insist on being argumentative?


To the OP, that first pic looks almost brown. The second appears to be more ruby. Did it taste oxidized at all?

The policing of what constitutes “geeky” on WB is truly bizarre. As soon as I saw that reference I knew what the response would be . . .

Oh it’s far from always. I ignore 90% of the stuff that irks or rubs me, only because I don’t want to be argumentative! (Although I do admit I find it hard to stay silent if there’s a factual error somewhere. And I welcome every comment that corrects any errors I make!)

However, a topic that says “geekiest wine ever” is bound to attract wine geeks. I’m sorry if the wine described here doesn’t really come across as particularly geeky from a wine geek point of view.

Fair point.

Good eye! I would say the wine in the first picture (the closeup with text showing through) is more accurate in terms of the wine’s appearance. It did look a little brown, and honestly, I was worried that it be oxidized from the color alone. My guess is that the other picture looks ruby bc of the darker background. The wine wasn’t oxidized though, and in fact was a touch reductive upon opening. It tasted much fresher than it looked.

Watch out, Otto might come and argue that you don’t know what reductive really means.

Howzit to this thread - just wanted to say cheers for the feedback - working on a Visa for the US and every little bit of publicity helps!
~ The Wine Thief

This is why I never order the “house red” at a restaurant in Finland – carbonic 11% alcohol pinotage is totally mainstream there.

Unfortunately I have been served carbonic maceration Pinotage in the now defunct Chef & Sommelier restaurant in Helsinki the one time I made the mistake of taking the sommelier’s wine pairings so you really are not far off. Everyone at the table hated that wine though.

Funny you mention it, I’m somewhat sure I had that same wine there. I remember loving the food but hating the wine pairings.

Everybody knows you can’t pair carbonic pinotage with Kaalikääryleet.

I’m sure they pushed it on anyone not confident enough to decline such offers and order bottles from the list before the natural wine craze their wine list was mostly conventional with producers like Gitton Père et Fils, Fontodi and Querciabella. I really liked it at that time.

Well… during the height of the New Nordic trend pretty much all those restaurants in Helsinki were making their version of Kaalikääryleet and other similar classics and some of these restaurants were pushing natural wine a lot.