Unbelievable Dry Red Wine

Wine: Unbelievable Dry Red Wine

Grape: pinotage

Region: Paarl, Cape Region, South Africa

Vintage: nonvintage

Price: $5.99

In the glass: Unbelievable Dry Red Wine is a fine, bright garnet-red color with a semitranslucent firm core going out into a light garnet rim definition with medium viscosity.

On the nose: There is a lovely scent of freshly crushed brambleberries, raspberries, red cherries and cranberry fruit emanating from the bowl with light hints of smoked wood, allspice and phenolic character underlying, then just touches of fruit-driven minerality and toast.

On the palate: The wine is a rounded and mellow version of what I normally taste in pinotages and is pleasantly fruity with lots of crushed cranberry and cherry, raspberry coulis and touches of currants. The midpalate is where the smoke and wood come out and integrate nicely with the fruit, leading to a most pleasant finish that just lingers with a hint of barbecue sauce.

Odds and ends: Unbelievable Dry Red Wine is without a question the simplest form of labeling ever employed on a wine bottle. There is no label affixed to the bottle, just a neck tag with the pertinent information, making it easy to find in the store. And the name is a setup for expectations, if there ever was one. The biggest question for me was whether it lived up to its name, and taking all things into consideration, including price, it actually does. It is produced by a winery with the unlikely name of Mount Vernon in Paarl, which is one of the top-producing appellations in the Cape Region of South Africa. The wine is made from the native South African hybrid grape variety pinotage. You can probably guess that it is a cross between pinot noir and another grape, which in this case is cinsault. Pinotage wines tend to be very smoky and full of bacon character, but Unbelievable remains on the fruitier side, which is why I liked it a lot. It is a nice medium-bodied red wine that can be enjoyed at this time of the year just by the glass or with some good cheeses and breads. Drink it now through 2014.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz's wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.