I’d really hoped that coffee-tasting wines had been put to bed in this column. I had had my rant and the comments were made; I had purged myself from the nastiness, hoping never again to have to speak of these wines here.

But it reared its vile little head recently when I read that caffeine had been found in one of the coffee styled Pinotages.

When I read this, a sigh escaped from me that may have been comparable to Odysseus’ when he realised his crew had opened the bag given to him by Aeolus, thereby releasing the winds meant to finally take him home.

Too literary? Okay. A sigh so laden with woe and frustration that roses withered, babies cried, and a dark cloud settled over my abode.

This sigh by any other name would be the “wailing and gnashing of teeth”, described in Lolgebra as (smh+fml)*(omg + ffs) = Harry’s pinotage sigh.

I diluted my Chianti Classico with bitter tears, as I knew once again I would write something.

You see, I have heard of some people asking how coffee flavours are imparted into these types of wines; some falsely think that a sort of coffee essence is used. An acquaintance recently told me how she overheard someone refusing a glass of a coffee flavoured Pinotage because it would keep her up at night. This is the equivalent of thinking that lemon and lime Brutal Fruit will save you from scurvy.

So to hear that a producer may have added something to a wine to encourage these flavours, and that this may introduce caffeine into the wine saddened me no end. More than just because it could give the philistines a chance to cock their heads and say, “see, I told you so” but also, if this is true, it could do serious damage to our wine industry.

After my sigh had run its long, thunderous course, I tried to find out more about these allegations. It all started on Neil Pendock’s Sunday Times wine page where a reader, Yvette Naude from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pretoria, had sent in a letter:

We are interested in synergistic effects of aroma compounds and study these compounds using multi-dimensional chromatography and novel off-line olfactometry.

Some time ago we evaluated aroma compounds in Pinotage to see which combinations of compounds are responsible for the coffee-chocolate note in the so-called mocha-styled Pinotage. We are mainly interested in those combinations of individual aroma compounds resulting in an entirely new/different aroma perception compared to that of each of the individual compounds alone. An analogy would be when mixing colours; for example blue + yellow = green.

While busy analysing a number of mocha/coffee Pinotage wines I idly wondered if the coffee perception was not from wood products alone, but was instead from a little help of the real thing? Lo and behold we detected caffeine in one of the wines.

Sounds scary. Especially scary if you are a Lit student and have a slightly romantic view of wine. When you pray to Bacchus, are fond of waxing lyrical about wine and have a habit of anthropomorphizing what is in your glass, a phrase like “synergistic effects of aroma compounds and study these compounds using multi-dimensional chromatography and novel off-line olfactometry,” actually hurts your eyes.

The first question I asked myself is, “Can caffeine occur naturally in wine?” As I am not a plant biochemist, I do not know the answer (I have asked a few people who are, but they have not got back to me yet). This is the first question that needs to be cleared up.

Either way, it seems that more tests need to be done, as Wines of South Africa (WOSA) issued a statement in response to Naude’s claims last week. An excerpt:

The Department [of Agriculture] has been testing a range of Pinotage wines with pronounced coffee flavour profiles, using the liquid chromotography mass spectrometry method, and has not found any traces of caffeine. This is a dedicated and highly specific methodology for the detection of caffeine in wine, unlike the University of Pretoria’s small-scale study, which used a different methodology, designed to detect and identify wine aroma compounds. Caffeine was not a targeted analyte and different results could thus have been yielded.

So where are we? Is there caffeine in these wines? Is someone being dodgy and adding things to wines they shouldn’t? There are strict laws governing what can and cannot go in a wine. In 2004 two wine makers at KWV got into big kak for adding illegal substances to their Sauvignon Blancs. The problem is these scandals damage the South African industry as a whole. South African winemakers end up looking like a bunch of Tour de France cyclists.

It seems we are pretty much where we started. One way of studying a wine suggests that there is caffeine, another method (specifically designed to look for caffeine) does not. The same wine was tested using different methods that yielded different results. Now I am no scientist, but what this says to me is we need further study, time, and more results before we come to any conclusions. There is no proof of wrongdoing, yet. So what is very important is that people don’t start jumping up and down saying there is caffeine in coffee flavoured Pinotages, because we simply do not know that yet. If the scientists are disagreeing, who are we, the consumers (that’s figurative in my case, I don’t consume the stuff) to claim a result?

Personally, it seems rather absurd for producers to try to add anything to produce coffee flavours, as they can be achieved easily without any additives. These wines have, so far, been shown to offer the coffee aroma and flavours legally through a combination of ripeness, yeast type, and the type and toasting of oak.

I don’t like the wines. But I would prefer to drink a case of it than to find out winemakers have been cheating. This wine is bad for your palate, but cheating is terrible for the entire industry. For now, we just have to wait for more research to be done.

In the mean time, how about something delicious? I suggest a glass of Monis Fino Sherry. Brilliant value, completely under-drunk.

If Fino is not your thing, then I have just the party to take your mind off chocolate wines. Not just a party, but a Big Bottle Party. A weekend of wines being served out magnum bottles or bigger. Now, wines out of big bottles are just plain awesome, and as such they taste better. There will be a 15l bottle – a Nebuchadnezzar – of French Champagne, a 5l bottle of 2001 Hamilton Russel Pinot Noir and plenty more. Crazy. It’s not formal or stuffy, it’s just about drinking rad wines out of big bottles.

We have a two pairs of tickets values at R900 bucks a pair to give away for the walk around tasting on the 27th of August.

Let us know in the comments what the name is for a 15l champagne bottle.

For info on the other events over the weekend check out https://bigbottle.co.za

The winner will be chosen at random.

If you haven’t been contacted by Wednesday the 24th of August, you have not won the tickets.