Fairview Paarl Pinotage
£18.99
£25.32 per litre · incl. 20% VAT
In Stock — 6 bottles available
Pinotage with the volume turned up just right. Fairview's Paarl bottling pulls dark cherry, plum and a curl of oak spice from a mix of old bush vines and trellised blocks, finishing smooth where lesser Pinotage often turns rustic. A confident, crowd-pleasing red from one of the Cape's most respected estates, delivered to your door across the UK.
Not for sale to persons under 18. Adult signature required on delivery.
Our Verdict
Fairview is one of those producers we trust to deliver, vintage after vintage, and the Paarl Pinotage is the bottle we point to when someone tells us they don't get on with the grape. It's smoother and more generous than the rustic stereotype, bush-vine concentration, polished oak, real length, without losing that smoky Cape character that makes Pinotage worth drinking in the first place. Charles Back's estate knows exactly what it's doing here. A genuine crowd-pleaser at a fair price, and one of our go-to recommendations for anyone exploring South African reds for the first time.
Tasting Notes
Dark ruby in the glass, with a generous nose that leads on ripe red and black cherry, blackberry and plum, underscored by a whisper of cocoa and sweet vanilla from the oak. The palate is full-bodied and smooth, the dark fruit carried by well-knit oak spice and a fresh, firm tannin frame that gives the wine real shape. A dry, peppery lift runs through the middle, and the finish is long and lingering, quietly savoury rather than jammy.
Ripe dark cherry
Layers of red cherry, black cherry and plum sit at the heart of the wine, generous Paarl fruit, ripe but never confected.
Cocoa and vanilla
Fifteen months in French and American oak adds a soft cocoa-vanilla warmth that frames the fruit without ever dominating it.
Dry oak spice
A thread of peppery, dry spice runs across the palate, lifting the richness and giving the wine its savoury, grown-up edge.
About This Wine
If you've ever been suspicious of Pinotage, too smoky, too rustic, too divisive, let Fairview talk you round. This is the grape at its most polished and persuasive: dark ruby in the glass, with ripe red cherry, blackberry and plum tumbling out of the nose, all wrapped in a soft halo of chocolate and vanilla from time in barrel. Take a sip and the texture does the talking. Full-bodied but smooth, with firm, fresh tannins giving it shape, and a long, lingering finish that keeps inviting you back.
The fruit comes from a mix of older dryland bush vines and trellised vineyards on the Fairview farm in Paarl, the warmer, granite-soiled neighbour of Stellenbosch, where Pinotage ripens to plummier, more generous expression. Anthony de Jager and his team pick block by block to catch each parcel at peak maturity, then settle the wine for fifteen months in French and American oak (around 15% of it new). The result is a Pinotage that feels considered rather than chest-thumping, built for drinking now but happy to rest in the rack for a few years yet.
This is a wine that wants something on the plate. Pour it with a charred ribeye, a slow-cooked beef cheek, or, for the full Cape experience, a fragrant Cape Malay lamb curry. It also handles roast duck and grilled portobellos beautifully.
A reliable gift for any red-drinker, and the kind of bottle South African expats greet like an old friend. We ship UK-wide, usually within a few days.
Food Pairing
This is a wine built for the carving board. It loves char and fat in equal measure, a rare-cooked beef fillet, a Sunday rib of beef, sticky lamb chops off the grill. The spice underneath also makes it a natural with a Cape Malay lamb curry or a smoky braai. For something meat-free, lean into umami: grilled portobello mushrooms or a rich aubergine bake.
- —Rare-cooked beef fillet with peppercorn sauce
- —Cape Malay lamb curry with yellow rice
- —Slow-cooked beef short ribs
- —Grilled portobello mushrooms with garlic butter
- —Roast duck with cherry sauce
How to Serve
Temperature
Cool room temperature. Pull it from the rack about thirty minutes before serving, too warm and the alcohol pushes forward.
Decanting
Worth decanting. Give it forty-five minutes to an hour in a wide-bottomed decanter; the firm tannins soften noticeably with air and the cocoa and dark-fruit aromatics open right up.
Glass
A large-bowled Burgundy or Bordeaux glass works best, giving the ripe fruit and oak spice room to expand.
Cellaring
Store on its side somewhere cool, dark and steady, around 12–14°C, and it will happily rest for another four to five years.
Ageing & Cellaring
Drinking beautifully now, but there is real reward in patience here. The firm tannins and concentrated dark fruit will happily soften and knit together over another four to five years in the bottle, gaining a more savoury, leathery complexity as the primary fruit settles down.
The Land
The fruit is drawn from a deliberate mix: old dryland bush vines that dig deep for moisture and concentrate flavour, alongside trellised vineyard blocks on the Fairview farm itself. Together they give the wine both the depth of low-yielding old vines and the freshness of younger, well-managed plantings.
The Winemaking
Fruit comes from a mix of older dryland bush vines and trellised blocks across the Fairview farm, picked block by block over several days so each parcel hits the cellar at its own ideal point of ripeness. The wine then settles into French and American oak for around fifteen months, with roughly 15% of those barrels new. That restrained oak regime is the key: it lends a quiet vanilla and spice frame without ever burying the dark cherry and plum fruit at the wine's core.
About the Producer
Fairview
Fairview is one of those Cape estates that refuses to sit still. Run by Charles Back, whose family has farmed this corner of Paarl for generations, it's built a reputation on curiosity rather than tradition for tradition's sake, planting Mediterranean varieties when nobody else would, making goat's cheese alongside the wine, and launching the cheeky Goats do Roam range that ruffled feathers in Châteauneuf and won hearts everywhere else. The wines reflect the man: serious about quality, allergic to pretension. Whether it's a benchmark Pinotage or a fortified curiosity like this one, you get the sense that someone genuinely enjoyed making it.