Vineyard Blocks

One block 5 yr old vines on 5 wire vertical trellis with moveable foliage wires. Clones SH21A; SH1A & SH99 all on 101 - 14 rootstock. "Mont Fleur" vineyard - high altitude Helderberg mountain NW facing slope. Steeply sloping site with rocky, granitic based Hutton soil. Lightly irrigated after veraison and shortly before harvest to avoid excessive stress during the critical ripening stage. Yield 5 tons / hect.

 

Vintage Conditions

A dry, hot summer. The ripening period was hot and dry.  The harvest was early with ripe, healthy grapes producing big wines with high alcohols. 

Harvest date : 22 / 2 / 00 @ 26.7° balling.

 

Production

Handpicking into 20 kg lugboxes. Destemming and gentle crushing directly into small 2 ton open top fermentation tanks. Spontaneous natural yeast fermentation @ max. 33 deg. with the cap of skins punched down manually 2 - 4 times a day for 11 days. Wine drained directly to barrels together with single pressing from traditional basket press.

All our red wine undergo malolactic fermentation in the barrel. This helps to integrate the new oak component and fix colour and flavour compounds. 25% new French oak and 25 % new American oak was used.

Time in barrel 20 months with only a single racking.

This wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered by hand.

Bottling date : 13 / 11 / 2001.

Production : 129 cases.

 

Tasting Notes

Incredibly dark red colour.  Intense vanilla blackberry nose – very New World – some pepper, spices and a hint of leather too.  Big, rich palate with lots of fruit and chunky, ripe tannins.  Long warm finish.  Probably best between 2003 & 2008. Ideal with strong flavoured red meat, especially venison.

 

Analysis

Alc.  15.93             SG.  2.1             TA  5.8             pH  3.46              VA  0.67              SO2  33 & 49