Cabernet Franc

Enjoy with crumbed veal or pork dish.

This Keermont site high up on the SW side of the Stellenbosch mountain 380m above sea level and looking across to the eastern side of the Helderberg and further afield across Cape Town to Table Mountain, just screamed out to be planted to Cabernet Franc. Cool, clayish, decomposed granite soils too exposed to wind for Merlot. Vertical trellis. 15 yr old vines. Clone CF214 on 101- 14 rootstock. Yield 6 tons/ha. Also, a little fruit from our Elevation 393 vineyard. 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 123mm in October. This provided vigorous canopies and high fungal disease pressure which was well managed by our grower. A very hot and dry January was quite a shock to many vineyards, but our vines in deep soils managed this period well. February was cooler with a little relieving rain. Slightly higher yields, but all in really good balance and picked in perfect condition. Harvest date: 23/2/22 - 1/3/22 @ 24.2 to 24.4 balling

Time in barrels 17 months with several rackings to gradually clarify the wine. This wine was bottled unfiltered by hand on the property.

100% destemming and crushing by hand directly into small open top fermentation tanks. Spontaneous natural yeast fermentation @ 29ºC with the cap of skins punched down 2 – 3 times a day for 14 days. Wine drained directly to barrels together with single pressing from traditional basket press. All our wine undergoes malolactic fermentation in the barrel. 35% 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.