Belfield Cabernet Sauvignon

A great food wine. Ideal with subtle red meats like veal, lamb, charcuterie, mushrooms and most things savoury.

Ideal winter conditions with sufficient rain and cold units up until the end of August 2021. Excellent budbreak about 7 days later than usual resulting in nice even growth. Early spring was cool and dry and then became cooler and wetter with a lot of rain in October. This provided vigorous canopies and high fungal disease pressure which was very well managed by the Belfield team. A hot and dry January, not too different from a typical Stellenbosch summer. February was cooler with a little relieving rain. Slightly higher yields, but all in good balance and picked in perfect condition. Harvest date: 11/03/22, 19/3/22 & 28/3/22 @ 24,3, 22,5 & 22,6 Balling.

Time in barrels 18 months with several rackings to gradually clarify the wine and assist maturation.

100% destemming and crushing by hand directly into a 2 ton open top fermentation tank, with a lot of whole berries included. Spontaneous natural yeast fermentation @ max. 27ºC. including pre fermentation and post fermentation soaks with regular punch downs for 21 days. Wine drained directly to barrels, together with single pressing from traditional basket press for malolactic fermentation. 25% new French oak was used from high quality coopers.

A small family winery at the end of the Upper Blaauwklippen Road in the mountains above Stellenbosch South Africa. Established in 1992 by architect David Trafford & artist wife Rita with the focus on high end red wines of great intensity & longevity using minimal intervention production methods.