Collectors Reserve The Promenade Pinotage

Hand-picked in 500kg fruit bins, the grapes were handled with minimum intervention and de-stemmed over a sorting table into 15-ton fermenters. The must was left overnight and then 10-15% of its juice was drained to concentrate the body, flavour and aroma compounds of the final product. The wine was then fermented with a preferred yeast strain and continuous timer-regular pump-over cycles, in combination with compressed air, were used to extract maximum fruit, colour and tannin.

The grapes were selected from an 18-year-old vineyard on the open Westerly side of the valley. The block faces to the West, exposing it to the afternoon sun. The soils are fairly deep and of the yellow Clovelly and red Hutton forms, which have a fair amount of clay content for good water retention. The vineyard gives great quality throughout, but there are known spots that are positively different. The selection was made out of these by tasting and chemical analyses to ensure full ripeness. The vineyards were inspected on regular visits to assess skin and seed ripeness, which is of vital importance in making great Pinotage. Picking commenced when the skins were soft and the seeds woody, guaranteeing an absolute absence of greenness and abundance of soft ripe fruit.

The wine was then matured in a combination new and second fill, tight grained medium toasted French oak barrels for 14 months.