If you want Pinot Noir, but need the hardiness of Cinsault you create Pinotage wines. In the late 1920's the seeds for these South African wines were created by an adventurous scientist.
These wines taste like banana or banana peel typically. Beware acetone though, because that can happen too.
These wines can also be very meaty, bacon, barnyard, goat. I have smelled them all from these bottles.
Want to see what I mean. Here's a video of Debra and I trying one. It wasn't bad but not my favorite either.
In fact one wine, Goats Do Roam, reminded me so much of a barnyard that I wished they called it something different. That was all I could think of when I drank it. Goats.
But, when you open a bottle and get banana, I love that smell and that taste. Being a type of red wine, strawberry and cherry are also pretty typical. The banana can be vanilla-ey, due to oak aging. And I love that taste too. Not overbearing wood, but vanilla.
Definitely a wine to expand your palate with. Besides when was the last time someone else told you to drink a South African wine?