Syrah 393

Please note: Award stickers are applied at the producer's discretion and may not be present on all bottles.

A stricter than usual green harvest and our earliest picking to retain acidity and freshness in an extreme season. (We never add acidity). Handpicking into 20kg crates. Destemming and gentle crushing directly into small 2ton open-top fermentation tanks with 10% whole bunches. Spontaneous natural yeast fermentation @max 30C with the cap of skins punched down manually 1-4times a day for 14 days. Wine drained directly to barrel.

Our home vineyard on the Month Fleur farm, high up (393m above sea level) on the slopes of the Helderberg Mountain. The closest mountain in Stellenbosch to the sea. The Syrah is planted n the steepest part and much of it on small terraces. Rocky, granitic based Hutton soil. One section 22yr old vines on a vertical trellis. Clones SH21A; SH1A & SH99 all on 101-14 rootstock. 5000 vines/hect. Yield 4tons/hect. (29hl/ha) 2nd section 14-year-old vines on a vertical trellis with narrow rows and high planting density as above. Clones SH470 (sourced Cotie Rotie); SH174 (sourced from Hermitage) and SH747 all on 101-14 (low vigour) rootstock. Yield 2 tons/hect. (10hl/ha)

40% new fine grained, slow toasted small French oak was used in the first year and no new oak in the second year. Time in barrel 19 months with only 2 gentle rackings. This wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered by hand.