Nederburg 5600 Pinotage
£13.49
£17.99 per litre · incl. 20% VAT
In Stock — 11 bottles available
Pinotage with the volume turned just right, ripe, smoky, generous, and built for the table rather than the cellar. Nederburg draws fruit from some of the Cape's most reliable corners to make a red that's instantly likeable, properly South African, and easy to keep on hand for midweek suppers, weekend braais, or whenever a friend drops in unannounced.
Not for sale to persons under 18. Adult signature required on delivery.
UK wide delivery
Expert curated
Our Verdict
We listed this because the Cape needs an everyday Pinotage you can trust, and Nederburg consistently delivers. There's no pretence here, it's not trying to be a serious cellar wine, and it's all the better for it. What we like is the balance: enough smoky fruit and spice to remind you exactly which grape you're drinking, but with the rough edges polished off. It's the bottle we recommend to customers who've never tried Pinotage and want a proper introduction, and to expats who just want a familiar pour with dinner. A genuine workhorse, in the best possible sense.
Tasting Notes
A medium-bodied, fruit-forward Pinotage that leads with ripe red plum, black cherry and a brush of mulberry on the nose, lifted by a curl of wood smoke that's pure Cape signature. The palate is generous and rounded, with juicy dark berry fruit framed by soft, supple tannins and a flicker of clove and cocoa. The granite and shale soils show through in a fresh seam of acidity, keeping it lively rather than heavy, and the finish carries gentle savoury spice into a comfortable, easy length.
Ripe Plum & Cherry
Generous dark and red berry fruit sits at the core, think squashed plum and black cherry, ripe but never jammy.
Cape Wood Smoke
A subtle curl of smoke threads through the fruit, the savoury, distinctly South African signature that marks good Pinotage.
Soft Cocoa & Clove
A whisper of cocoa and warm clove spice rounds the mid-palate, adding gentle complexity without weighing things down.
About This Wine
Here's a Pinotage that does exactly what you want a weeknight Cape red to do. Dark berry fruit on the nose, think mulberry and ripe plum, with that telltale wisp of wood smoke and a hint of sweet spice underneath. The palate is round and welcoming, soft enough to drink on its own but with enough structure to handle whatever you're putting on the plate.
The fruit comes from a clever spread of Cape vineyards, Groenekloof, Wellington, Stellenbosch and the broader Coastal region, grown on granite and shale soils that give the grapes their natural freshness and lift. Blending across sites is the secret here: each parcel brings something different, and Nederburg's winemakers have been doing this long enough (since 1791, give or take) to know exactly how the pieces fit together.
Pour it with a Sunday roast and you're laughing. It loves charred meat, sticky pork ribs, lamb chops off the barbecue, a properly burnt boerewors, and it's equally happy alongside a midweek shepherd's pie or a mature Cheddar. Serve it lightly chilled in summer; let it breathe for ten minutes if you're drinking it in winter.
This is the kind of bottle that earns its place on the rack. Reliable, affordable, unmistakably South African, and delivered to your door anywhere in the UK. Sending one to a homesick Capetonian? They'll know exactly what it is the moment they pour.
Food Pairing
This is a midweek workhorse with personality. Pull the cork alongside a Friday-night burger with smoked Cheddar, or pour it with bangers and mash and proper onion gravy. It loves anything off the barbecue, boerewors especially, and handles a mushroom-heavy pasta with confidence. For something more relaxed, a wedge of mature Gouda and a few green olives is all it needs.
- —Char-grilled boerewors with tomato relish
- —Smoked Cheddar cheeseburger with caramelised onions
- —Sausages and mash with rich onion gravy
- —Mushroom and thyme tagliatelle
- —Sticky barbecue pork ribs
How to Serve
Temperature
Cool room temperature. A brief twenty minutes in the fridge before serving sharpens the fruit and freshness.
Decanting
No need to decant. A quick swirl in the glass is plenty, this is a wine designed to be poured and enjoyed, with soft tannins that don't need coaxing open. If you've a spare half-hour, the smoky notes lift nicely.
Glass
A standard red wine glass with a generous bowl lets the smoky, fruity aromatics gather and show themselves.
Ageing & Cellaring
Built for drinking now rather than the cellar. The fruit is at its most generous and lively in its youth, and the soft tannins don't need time to settle. Buy it, open it, enjoy it, ideally within a couple of years of purchase.
The Land
Granite and shale soils underpin the vineyards, lending the grapes a higher natural acidity and a built-in freshness that carries through to the glass. Open canopy management lets sunlight reach the bunches, building tannin structure, deeper colour, and a cleaner fruit expression, the unshowy fieldwork that makes a wine feel alive rather than heavy.
About the Producer
Nederburg
Nederburg sits in the Paarl valley, at the foot of the Drakenstein mountains, and it has been making wine there since 1791. That's not a typo. Few producers anywhere in the world, let alone the Cape, can claim over two centuries of continuous winemaking history, and Nederburg wears that history properly: not as a museum piece, but as the foundation for one of South Africa's largest and most consistently decorated wine estates.
The original farmhouse, a gabled Cape Dutch manor completed in 1800, still stands today and is protected as a national monument. It's the kind of building that tells you everything about the Cape's Dutch colonial past, all whitewashed walls and elegant curves, and it remains the beating heart of the estate.
What interests me most about Nederburg, though, isn't the architecture. It's the winemaking lineage. Through the twentieth century, a succession of talented winemakers built the estate's reputation for quality at scale, most notably the German-born Günter Brözel, whose work in the vineyards and cellar helped set new standards for South African wine and brought Nederburg an extraordinary run of show success. Few Cape estates have collected more trophies and awards over the decades.
That combination, serious scale paired with genuine craft, is why I think Nederburg deserves a place in any UK wine lover's exploration of South Africa. The 5600 range, named for the estate's founding altitude marker, offers Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinotage that show real varietal character without asking you to spend a fortune. The Cuvée Brut, meanwhile, is proof that South Africa's sparkling wine scene deserves far more attention than it gets on UK shelves.
We stock Nederburg because it does something genuinely useful: it makes reliably good, honestly priced South African wine accessible to people who are just starting to explore what the Cape has to offer. This isn't a boutique producer chasing scarcity. It's a historic estate that has spent over two hundred years learning how to make wine people actually want to drink, delivered to your door here in the UK.