Vineyard Blocks

1 block 19 year old vines on 7 wire vertical trellis with moveable foliage wires. Clone MO 192 on 101 - 14 rootstock. On low lying Helderberg mountain site. Poor gravelly clay soil.

Yield 3 tons / hect. (22hl/ha).

2nd block 13 year old vines on 7 wire vertical trellis with moveable foliage wires. Mix of “new clones” on R110 & R99 rootstocks. 'Mont Fleur' vineyard - high altitude mountain slope. Soil deep red Hutton. Yield 6 tons / hect. (39hl/ha).

3rd block 17 year old vines on 5 wire vertical trellis with moveable foliage wires.  Clone MO192 on R99 rootstock.  “Keermont” vineyard – high altitude mountain slope. Soil deep gravelly Hutton.  Yield 3 tons / hect. (22hl/ha)

 

Vintage Conditions

Typical cold, wet winter followed by a normal growing season with enough rain and warm weather to produce good, balanced growth. The knife-edge harvest conditions with small heat waves alternating with short, wet, cold spells seemed to bring out a nutty character in the Merlot and accentuate the natural structure of the wine in quite an elegant way

Harvest date : 3 / 2 / 07 – 29 / 3 / 07 @ 23.2 – 26.5° B

 

Production

Handpicking into 20 kg lugboxes.  Destemming and gentle crushing directly into small 2 ton open top fermentation tanks. Spontaneous natural yeast fermentation @ max. 30°C with the cap of skins punched down manually 1-3 times a day for 10 – 14 days. Wine drained directly to barrels together with single pressing from traditional basket press.

All our red wines undergo malolactic fermentation in the barrel. 35% new French oak was used from high quality coopers. Time in barrel 19 months, which included several rackings to gradually clarify the wine and assist maturation.

The wine was bottled unfiltered by hand on the property.

 Bottling date : 13 / 11 / 08. Production : 460 x 12 x 750ml

 

Tasting Notes

Attractive bright red colour. Rich red berry and cherry fruit with intriguing earthiness, nuts and spices.  These flavours follow through on the palate with lovely fine dry tannins and a classic long, finish. 

Probably best between 2010 and 2015. Ideal with baked pasta (such as cannelloni) and various light red meat dishes such as veal, lamb and pork. 

 

Analysis 

Alc.  14.83             SG.  1.8           TA  5.4           pH  3.55           VA 0.54           SO2  14free 48total