Kanonkop Kadette Pinotage
£19.49
£25.99 per litre · incl. 20% VAT
In Stock — 8 bottles available
Veritas / SA Top 100, frequent recognition (various)
Kanonkop's calling card, and the easiest way into one of South Africa's most decorated cellars. Kadette Pinotage delivers everything you want from the Cape's signature grape, bright cherry and plum, a curl of cinnamon smoke, supple tannins, at a price that makes weeknight pours guilt-free. Bold, generous, unmistakably South African.
Not for sale to persons under 18. Adult signature required on delivery.
UK wide delivery
Our Verdict
We list a lot of Pinotage, and the Kadette is the one we recommend first to anyone curious about the grape. It's the most honest introduction to Kanonkop's house style we've found at this price, fruit-forward and approachable, but with the structural backbone that hints at why the estate has been named International Winemaker of the Year five times at the IWSC. One of our most popular Stellenbosch reds, and a wine we genuinely keep in our own kitchens. If you fall for it, the Kadette Cape Blend is the natural next step up.
Tasting Notes
Bright purple in the glass, with a nose that pulls you in immediately, ripe cherries, red and black plums, a touch of strawberry, and a warm undercurrent of vanilla, cinnamon and allspice from the oak. The palate follows through with juicy raspberry and plum, a ribbon of milk chocolate, and layers of cedar and baking spice. Medium-bodied, with fresh acidity keeping it lively and fine-grained tannins giving just enough grip. The finish lingers, savoury, spiced, satisfying.
Ripe Red Berries
Juicy raspberry, cherry and red plum lead the charge, generous, fresh, and the reason this drinks so easily on its own.
Milk Chocolate Warmth
A soft chocolate note runs through the mid-palate, rounding out the fruit and giving the wine its moreish, comforting character.
Baking Spice Layers
Cinnamon, allspice and a sprinkle of vanilla from French oak add gentle warmth without ever crowding out the fruit underneath.
About This Wine
If you've ever wondered why Pinotage fans get evangelical about Kanonkop, this is where you find out, without remortgaging the house. The Kadette is the estate's entry-level Pinotage, but don't let the price fool you. The same team that makes Kanonkop's celebrated Black Label and Paul Sauer is behind every bottle, working with fruit from the same decomposed-granite slopes of the Simonsberg in Stellenbosch.
Pour a glass and you'll see why this wine wins so many friends. Bright purple-red in the glass, with a generous nose of dark cherries, ripe plum and strawberry, lifted by warm baking spice, cinnamon, allspice and a whisper of vanilla from twelve months in second- and third-fill French oak. The palate is juicy and welcoming: raspberry and cranberry up front, milk chocolate and cedar underneath, finishing with fine-grained tannins and a long, savoury echo.
Medium-bodied and food-friendly to its core, this is a Pinotage that knows exactly what to do with a Friday-night pizza, a slow-cooked beef stew or a charcoal-grilled lamb burger. It's brilliant with Thai curries too, the fruit cushions the chilli beautifully.
Delivered across the UK, ready for the table or wrapped up for a homesick Capetonian who'll recognise that label the second they see it.
Food Pairing
Built for the table. The juicy fruit and fine tannins handle char beautifully, think a backyard barbecue with lamb burgers or sticky pork ribs. The spice notes make it a surprisingly clever match for fragrant Thai red curry, while a venison stew or a generously topped pepperoni pizza finds its natural partner here. Reach for it whenever the cooking involves smoke, spice or slow heat.
- —Barbecued lamb burgers with smoky chipotle mayo
- —Slow-cooked venison stew with juniper and red wine
- —Pepperoni and roasted pepper pizza
- —Thai red curry with beef and Thai basil
- —Sticky barbecued pork ribs
How to Serve
Temperature
Cool room temperature, slightly below where most British homes sit. Twenty minutes in the fridge before serving sharpens it nicely.
Decanting
Doesn't need a formal decant, but benefits from thirty minutes of air. Either pour into a jug or open the bottle and let it breathe, the spice and fruit lift noticeably as it opens.
Glass
A medium-to-large bowled red wine glass lets the cherry and spice aromatics gather and show off properly.
Cellaring
Store on its side in a cool, dark spot, ideally between 12 and 16°C. It's not a long-haul cellar wine, so don't tuck it too far away.
Ageing & Cellaring
Built to drink now while the fruit is generous and the spice is fresh. It'll happily hold for two to three years if you've got a cool, dark spot, with the tannins softening further and the oak settling into the fruit, but there's no need to wait.
The Land
The lower slopes of the Simonsberg are built on decomposed granite, well-drained, mineral-rich soils that force vines to work for their water and reward them with concentrated, dark-fruited Pinotage. Add a little altitude and that constant maritime breeze drifting up from False Bay, and you get wines with both depth and lift.
The Winemaking
Fermented in open-top concrete tanks at around 28°C, with the cap punched down every couple of hours to coax colour, flavour and supple tannin from the skins. After three days, the juice is run off, malolactic conversion settles things down, and the wine then spends a year in second- and third-fill 225-litre French Nevers barrels. Older oak is the smart choice here, it softens and rounds the wine without piling on vanilla, letting Pinotage's bright fruit and spice do the talking.
About the Producer
Kanonkop
Ask anyone who's spent time in South African wine circles which estate defines Stellenbosch reds, and Kanonkop comes up before you've finished the question. Tucked on the lower slopes of the Simonsberg mountain, this is a producer that has never chased fashion. Instead, it has spent decades perfecting two things: old-vine Pinotage and Bordeaux-style blends built to age.
What makes Kanonkop worth your attention is its refusal to modernise for modernising's sake. The red wines are still fermented in open concrete kuipe, with cellar hands physically punching down the cap by hand rather than relying on mechanical pumps. It's labour-intensive, slower, and exactly why the wines carry such depth and structure. Some of the Pinotage vines here are bush-trained and over fifty years old, planted long before the grape earned any international respect.
Winemaker Abrie Beeslaar has led the cellar since 2002, taking over from Beyers Truter, the man widely credited with putting South African Pinotage on the world map. Beeslaar has more than kept pace, picking up the International Winemaker of the Year title at the IWSC three times, a rare feat for anyone, anywhere. The estate remains a family business, run today by brothers Johann and Paul Krige, whose family has owned this land since 1929.
We stock Kanonkop because it answers a question UK customers often ask us: what does serious South African wine actually taste like? The Kadette range, the estate's second label, gives newcomers an honest, accessible route into that answer, built on the same philosophy and fruit sourcing as the flagship wines, just at a friendlier price point. If you want to understand why critics call this a First Growth of the Cape, starting here makes complete sense. Delivered across the UK, it's as close as you'll get to Simonsberg without a plane ticket.