Having been afforded the opportunity to offer you a rare case of 2007 De Trafford wines, including a Cape Winemakers Guild Perspective, we came to contemplate the things that have happened in the 10 years since the wine was bottled.
2007 - A Vintage Year
With specific reference to 2007 as a vintage year, David Trafford had the following to say:
“2007 is one of my favourite vintages & generally regarded as 'excellent', especially in the Stellenbosch area. We had a typical cold, wet winter followed by a good growing season with enough rain and warm weather to produce good, balanced growth. What really stood out in 2007 was the knife-edge harvest conditions with small heat waves alternated with short cold, wet spells. This seems to bring out a complex, less fruit driven and more elegant, nutty and spicy character to all the varieties. The cool evenings also added to the good acidity and structure of the wines. 2007 is probably the most elegant, finest vintage we've had since 1997. We believe all these wines are at their best now and will continue to keep well for another 5 years or more. “
10 Years of Popular Culture
To put the distance between now and 2007 into perspective there are things to consider, to remember. On January 9th, 2007 the first iPhone was unveiled; the mortgage crisis had just hit abroad and was slowly filtering down to us; Justin Bieber and his mother started posting videos on YouTube; Madeleine McCann went missing; Ban Ki-Moon assumed the role of UN Secretary General and the last Harry Potter Book came out (Deathly Hallows). Since then America has had its first black president and replaced him with someone wholly different. We lost Madiba. The Arab Spring began. Osama bin Laden was assassinated 10 years after his terrorist attack. Google StreetView was introduced. Steve Jobs died. They found water on the Moon. The population of Africa topped 1 billion people. Whitney Houston, David Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Leonard Cohen, Robin Williams, Zaha Hadid, all died. Things that stayed the same: Queen Elizabeth remains the Queen of England; the ANC is still in power; we still love Harry Potter; Madeleine McCann’s disappearance remains a mystery and Justin Bieber still posts videos on YouTube. And Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature. While he has said a great many things that resonate, not only with us, but with an international panel of professionals, he did say something which, when taken out of context can be applied to our De Trafford case: “The longer you live, the better you get.” Not always true of humans or wine, but in this case we’d like to remind you of just WHO it is we’re talking about and that Dylan was most probably referring to someone in the same personality class as the Traffords and their wine.
Pioneer Winemakers
The Traffords, David and Rita, are our adventure winemakers. They pick the most impossible spots and build internationally acclaimed vineyards, proving once again, that the harder you have to work for it, the better it will be. IT being the wine, or a metaphorical IT alluding to success (in most things). Now we like hard workers and the Traffords have time and again proven their mettle, first with the De Trafford range and then with Sijnn, the first vineyard in the Malgas wine ward. The De Trafford range is produced from the Mont Fleur farm set 380m above sea level, between the Stellenbosch and Helderberg mountains. While Sijnn is produced from the poor soils and dry climate of Malgas, an area near the Breede River, originally earmarked for wheat and sheep farming. It is their ability to see beauty in the forbidding and to cultivate interesting, beautiful wines from unwilling soils that keep us coming back. Now it’s up to you, the ageing has been done for you, unless YOU have the mettle to wait a year or two longer to see what we mean.
