Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

The grapes were hand harvested in small crates in the early hours of the morning to keep the grapes cool and preserve flavours. Grapes are cooled further overnight in our on-site cold room (3°C) and processed the following day. Bunch sorting is practiced to make sure only the best grapes are used in our wines. We make use of a Delta Oscillys De-stemmer with a very soft action. The grapes are rolled off the stems, preventing the extraction of harsh unwanted phenolics. Grapes go directly into our Bucher Inertys press (inert nitrogen press) where cold maceration on the skins takes place overnight. The press is started the next morning and the juice is pressed off to a stainless-steel tank. Settling takes place over 2 days and the clear juice is racked off to a stainless-steel tank for inoculation.

The Sémillon grapes hail from a Vineyard high up in the hills behind Sir Lowry’s Village, planted on Sandstone. The Sauvignon Blanc grapes hail from 2 separate sites in the Bottelary Hills. One vineyard is located right at the top ridge of the Bottelary Hills and the other vineyard at a lower altitude facing Table Mountain. Both Bottelary sites are planted on shale with extremely high rock content.

A portion of each block is fermented in stainless steel and the other in 500L French Oak Barrels. The wines were racked and returned once during the ageing period. Each block is kept separate during the vinification and ageing process and final blending takes place just before bottling. 30% of the wine did go through Malo-Lactic Fermentation. 100% of the wine was aged in 500L French Oak Barrels (50% New Oak).