Accolades
Decanter World Wine Awards 2011: Commended Award.
Tasting Notes
"The paradox of this wine is that the eye belies the other senses! Making white wine from red grapes using South Africa's unique Pinotage grape. Whole bunch pressing prevented the juice from obtaining colour from the skins. Barrel fermented and matured for nine months with lees stirring gives this wine a slightly creamy, nutty character to balance the tropical fruit and banana flavours."
In The Vineyard
The wine was made from Pinotage grapes that were produced on the farm Dekkersvlei in Klein Drakenstein near Paarl (approx 254 metres above sea level). The vines are trellised with drip irrigation with the yield approximately 5.5 tonnes per hectare.
About The Harvest
Harvest Date: 1st February 2010
Balling: 24.8°
pH: 3.62
Acidity: 6.1
In The Cellar
The grapes were whole bunched pressed (i.e. without de-stemming or crushing) in a pneumatic "bag" press to minimise colour retention. Extended juice settlement for 3 days using a settling enzyme removes any blush the juice may have retained. The juice (by then a coral colour) was then transferred to 300li Romanian & French oak barrels (20% new wood), and a small adjustment in acidity was made using tartaric acid. Yeast (Laffort VL2) was inoculated then fermented for approximately 28 days at an average temperature of 17 degrees C. Fermentation caused any remaining "tinting" in colour to drop out. Malolactic fermentation was partially encouraged in barrel after the alcoholic fermentation and the lees stirred.
Some gelatine fining was also used to clarify the wine prior to bottling.
No filtering of the wine was undertaken except at bottling when a medium filtration (split AF70/120) was undertaken.
Production was 271 cases (equivalent to 12 x 750ml bottles) under natural cork closure and the wine released to the South African market in February 2011, and in Europe during April 2011.
