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Wine Description
The Story
VINEYARDS AND VINES: This vineyard was planted in the mid 1950’s on decomposed granite soils. The vineyard has South East exposition and is 1.6 ha in extent.
VINIFICATION: the grapes are sorted meticulously in the vineyard and transported in small picking boxes to a refrigerated container where they are left overnight to cool. The whole bunches are fermented in dodgy old wooden vats and pumped over once daily. When fermentation is almost completed, the vat is pressed and the must is moved to a big, less dodgy, foudre for 14 months. This wine was bottled directly o its gross lees immediately after MLF.
Hermitake or Cinsault has been the work horse of the South African industry but over the last couple of decades its star has waned, in favour of the fancy Shiraz and its likes. This vineyard is occasionally bottled on its own and 2014 was one of these years. It possesses great fruit of the red spectrum, earthiness and some lovely spice. The palate is delicious in its transparency of fruit avours, fair acid grip and gentle tannins.
Wine Information
The winery is located on a mountain range which is a granite outcrop and three distinctive types of granitic soil are found on this property - specifically Paardeberg, Lammershoek and Lemoenfontein granites. The soils are extremely old and considered by many to be ‘low potential ‘ as vine growth is not as luxeriant as in other areas. Yields are generally quite low averaging 3-4 tons/ha for Chenin Blanc. No irrigation is used as the soild have the potential to store a good amount of water and slowly release during the growing season. Rainfall is around 480mm/yr falling mainly in the winter months of May – August/September. Winters tend to be cold and wet and leaf fall is quite sudden with the onset of Winter. Otherwise, the weather is pretty much medditteranean.