Klippenkop Pinotage
£11.99
£15.99 per litre · incl. 20% VAT
Only 5 bottles left
Pinotage with the volume turned down and the charm turned up. Klippenkop deliver Robertson's signature warmth in a glass: crushed black pepper, bramble fruit and a whisper of cinnamon, all wrapped in soft vanilla from gentle oak ageing. An easy, generous everyday red that punches well above its price tag, ready for tonight's table.
Not for sale to persons under 18. Adult signature required on delivery.
UK wide delivery
Our Verdict
We tasted through a lot of entry-level Pinotage before settling on Klippenkop, and what kept bringing us back was the balance. Plenty of cheaper Pinotage falls into one of two traps: jammy and confected, or rustic and tarry. This sits squarely in the middle, with proper Robertson sunshine in the fruit and just enough oak polish to feel grown-up. It's the bottle we'd pour for someone trying Pinotage for the first time, or for anyone who wants an honest, smoky South African red on a Tuesday night without overthinking it. Brilliant value, and a featured pick in our Pinotage range.
Tasting Notes
Lift the glass and you get freshly cracked black pepper first, threaded with warm cinnamon and a whisper of clove. Underneath sits a generous tumble of brambly red berries and rich mulberry, the kind of dark, slightly wild fruit Pinotage does so well. Time in French and American oak adds soft vanilla and a rounded sweetness on the mid-palate, while the finish stays full-bodied and savoury, with that distinctive smoky edge the grape is famous for.
About This Wine
If you've heard Pinotage can be challenging, this bottle is here to change your mind. Klippenkop have built their reputation on making South Africa's signature grape genuinely approachable, and this is the wine that proves the point. It's full-bodied without being heavy, fruit-forward without being simple, and astonishingly easy to drink for the money. Pour a glass and you'll find freshly cracked black pepper on the nose, with hints of cinnamon and clove drifting up alongside brambly red berries and a rich seam of mulberry. The palate is supple and rounded, with that classic Pinotage smokiness threading through the dark fruit. Eight months in a mix of French and American oak (the French for spice and structure, the American for that soft vanilla lift) rounds everything off without crowding the fruit. This comes from the Robertson Wine Valley, where lime-rich soils and reliable Karoo sunshine produce reds with proper depth at sensible prices. The grapes are picked from vineyards averaging just over a decade old, with smaller berries giving real concentration in the glass. Open it with a Sunday roast beef, a slow-cooked lamb stew, or a midweek bowl of rich pasta. It's the kind of bottle that earns its keep at the weeknight table and still has the swagger for a proper braai. We ship it across the UK, and at this price it's an easy one to keep a couple of spare bottles of in the rack.
Food Pairing
This is a wine built for the Sunday table. The peppery, berry-rich profile loves a rare roast beef with all the trimmings, or a slow-braised lamb shank where the spice notes echo the rosemary and garlic. It handles game beautifully too. For weeknight drinking, pour it alongside a proper steak or a rich ragu over pappardelle.
- —Rare roast beef with horseradish and Yorkshire puddings
- —Slow-braised lamb shanks with rosemary and red wine
- —Pan-fried venison steaks with juniper
- —Pappardelle with a rich beef and tomato ragu
- —Char-grilled ribeye with peppercorn sauce
How to Serve
Decanting
Not essential, but the wine rewards a little air. Open 20 to 30 minutes ahead, or splash into a decanter to lift the pepper and let the brambly fruit really stretch out.
Ageing & Cellaring
Drinking beautifully right now, with enough fruit weight and oak structure to hold comfortably for another three to four years. Expect the peppery edge to soften and the vanilla and mulberry notes to knit together more seamlessly with a little extra time in bottle.
The Land
The vineyards lie in deep Karoo and shale soils threaded with lime, a combination that gives vines a steady supply of minerals and keeps them in balance. Controlled irrigation holds berry size small, concentrating colour and flavour, while the hilly, well-drained terrain shrugs off excess water. It's a setting built for ripe, expressive fruit.
The Winemaking
Fermentation happens in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks at 28°C over nine days, a gentle approach that locks in bright fruit while building body and weight. The wine then settles into oak for six to eight months, with eighty percent in French barrels for spice and finesse, twenty percent in American for a softer vanilla lift. It's a measured regime: enough oak to round the edges, never so much that the brambly Pinotage character gets buried.
The Western Cape Region
Le Domaine draws its fruit from vineyards scattered across the Western Cape, from coastal sites cooled by Atlantic breezes to warmer inland slopes, all planted between 50 and 300 metres above sea level. This broad sourcing is deliberate. By blending components from different microclimates, the cellar builds a consistent house style that balances the crisp acidity of cooler sites with the ripe generosity of warmer ones. It's the Western Cape's extraordinary diversity captured in a single glass.
About the Producer
Klippenkop
Klippenkop is one of those labels that quietly gets on with the job of making good, honest Cape wine, and that's exactly why we like it. The name comes from the Afrikaans for a rocky outcrop, a "klip" and "kop", and if you've driven through Robertson you'll know the hills it's named for: sun-baked, limestone-flecked, rising out of the Breede River valley like the backbone of the whole region.
Rather than being built around one estate or one winemaker's ego, Klippenkop draws its fruit from a co-operative of growers across Robertson, a region better known among South Africans than it is here in the UK, but one that deserves far more attention. The soils are lime-rich, the sunshine reliable, and the grapes ripen fully and evenly, which is precisely what you want for wines that are meant to be poured on a Tuesday as happily as a Saturday.
There's nothing showy about the range. A Chenin Blanc that's fresh and food-friendly, a Syrah with proper peppery grip, and a Pinotage that does what good Pinotage should: bright cherry and plum fruit up front, that familiar smoky, mocha undertone underneath. These are wines built to be enjoyed rather than analysed, and that's a genuine skill in itself. Plenty of producers can make one exceptional bottle. Fewer can make consistently good, reliably enjoyable wine, vintage after vintage, at a price that doesn't ask you to think twice.
We stock Klippenkop because it fills a real gap: an entry point into South African wine that doesn't sacrifice character for accessibility. If you're new to Pinotage and not sure where to start, or you want a Chenin Blanc for a weeknight dinner without overthinking it, this is where we'd point you. It's also a lovely, low-pressure introduction for anyone curious about the Cape, or a straightforward, unfussy bottle to send someone who just wants a proper taste of South Africa. Delivered across the UK, it's Robertson in a glass: sunny, direct, and entirely without pretension.