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Winemaker’s Update on Harvest 2015
Could 2015 be the best vintage of the past decade? Winemakers are notorious for playing their cards close to the chest when it comes to making predictions about the latest harvest.
In my time at Lanzerac the wine years that went on to justified the initial feeling of greatness was 2007 and particular 2009 – a vintage that is widely acknowledge as the best the Cape has produced in the new millennium. The 2013 vintage is also now proving to be one of the better ones.
So how about the 2015 vintage you may ask? Well I am going to stick my neck out here and declare it as potentially rivaling the great 2009. First off the current vintage is by the end of March just a memory by being the earliest on recent records. Of more importance was the state of the grapes what can only be described as “superb”. Never have I seen grapes that were more healthy and had better technical analysis (acidity and pH levels was amazing). What makes me very excited about the earlier ripening varieties like Chardonnay, Merlot and Pinotage is that the grapes reached phenolic ripeness at lower sugars, higher acidities and lower Ph. levels – all markers that the modern wine maker is looking for.
As the dust is settling on the current vintages (we had the added excitement with huge veld fires in the Jonkershoek Valley at the end of harvest. Luckily it did not affect any vineyards or grapes as the harvest was in the cellar by then) we are pressing the last of the Cabernet tanks and filling barrels.
The new white wines in the cellar are finished with fermentation and have been sulphured and filled up in full tanks, while the red wines are currently undergoing malo-lactic fermentation. This quieter time in the cellar gives me time to taste, contemplate and access each wine and to make all important decisions regarding barrel use and maturation potential.
While this is going on we will also start to shift our attention slightly towards last year’s wines with blending and preparing them for bottling.
Have a blessed and peaceful Easter.
Wynand Lategan and the Lanzerac Cellar team.