The arrival on the Vine Time doorstep this week of the newly-released 2026 Delheim Pinotage Rosé, celebrating its 50th anniversary, stirred up memories of first journeys into wine.
Delheim holds a special place in my heart as the first wine estate I ever visited, its lush gardens, ivied walls and stone-clad underground tasting room adjacent to the cellar sparking exactly the sort of romantic associations that lead into a life-long love affair with wine.
Of course, bottles of Delheim’s Pinotage Rosé went home in the boot, along with Shiraz that I remember having a Persian carpet-style label to reflect the origins of the grape, and their best-selling white “Heerenwijn”, a staple of SA lunch tables for decades.
Heerenwijn and the Persian-carpeted Shiraz are no more, but Delheim Pinotage Rosé lives on.
At that stage, somewhere in the early 1990s, I had no idea just how pioneering Delheim and its legendary founding winemaker ,Michael Hans “Spatz” Sperling, were.
Where restaurants are now an expected standard offering on any wine farm, back then Delheim was one of just a handful where you could have a meal alongside wine tasting, famed for its “vintner’s platter” lunches long before artisan bread and charcuterie were a thing.
This was an innovation introduced by Spatz in 1972, describing its first incarnation in his memoirs as “literally comprised of a wooden plank that held three kinds of cheeses, butter for the fresh bread (illegally baked on the premises), and a slice or two of salami — charged at R2.50 a platter”.
This was not long after Spatz, along with Frans Malan of Simonsig and Niel Joubert of Spier, had launched SA’s first official wine route in Stellenbosch in 1971 and the first Stellenbosch Food & Wine Festival in 1976, kickstarting an entire wine tourism and festival industry.
It was also in 1976 that Spatz launched the first rosé in SA to be made from pinotage, having been one of the first in the 1950s to plant what is now considered our national grape and the first, in 1960, to release an estate-made pinotage. (The first commercial bottling in 1959 under the Lanzerac label was not strictly speaking “estate wine”.)
Delheim’s first Pinotage Rosé was born out of necessity — in the mid-70s, the SA wine industry was stuck with a “red wine lake”, having produced more than the local market could absorb and restricted from exporting to international markets.
Winemaker Otto Hellmer came up with the idea of using some of the estate’s Pinotage grapes to make rosé, a revolutionary idea at the time with the market for pink wine in SA relatively small and mostly focused on sweetish, fruity rosé.
Starting off as a semi-sweet and adapted over the years into today’s more favoured drier, palest pink styles, Delheim set an early benchmark for South African rosé that 50 years later is a huge market, with Delheim still a consumer favourite.
Spatz’s eldest children, Victor and Nora, are today the directors of Delheim, and Victor remembers how in the early years, the release of the new vintage of Delheim Pinotage Rosé was a much-anticipated highlight of the South African wine calendar.
“The annual launch of our Pinotage Rosé was taken very seriously, albeit in a mood of festivity.
“My father would travel around the country with the freshly bottled cases, hosting lunches to celebrate the introduction of the wine to hoteliers, restaurateurs, the wine trade and members of the media.
“He’d don a pink shirt and pink bow-tie, ensure the launch venues sported vases brimful of pink roses and invite guests to wear pink.
“It was a true happening and a show, hosted by Delheim’s walking, talking and joking marketing phenomenon.”
Dipping into a glass of the anniversary vintage of Delheim Pinotage Rosé (±R130) is a nostalgic moment, but the tasting experience of this pioneering wine is right up-to-date with what we want in a classy glass of rosé these days.
Today’s incarnation is made from pinotage grapes grown especially for rosé, rather than as an afterthought, choosing vineyards with a cooler microclimate to ensure freshness in the wine.
The wine is dry and elegant, deliciously fresh and refreshing, with abundant blossom and strawberry aromas leading into full red berry flavours, brightened with cranberry and pomegranate tanginess and lively minerality — showing just why pinotage makes great rosé.
Summer or winter, super on its own or with fruit, cheeses, salads, seafood, wild mushrooms, smoked salmon and creamy scrambled eggs for brunch, or a light Cape Malay-style chicken curry.
Delheim’s slogan is “worth the journey” and making it a destination on any winelands tour is certainly worthwhile and memory-making.
Activities reflect the family’s legacy of warm hospitality, the passions of the current stewards and their connection with the natural environment of the estate — from mushroom foraging in the winter months to hiking trails to live music and cheese fondue on winter Sundays.
The wine tasting offerings include an intriguing wine pairing with fynbos cupcakes that I’m definitely trying on my next visit — because there’s always a reason to return to Delheim!
Follow The Herald WhatsApp channel today and stay connected to the stories shaping our world.
The Herald
