Cabernet Sauvignon

Serve with rosemary encrusted lamb shank with duck fat roast potatoes.

Winter temperatures at the start of the 2020 vintage were moderate with below average rainfall. Fortunately, we had a wet Spring which prompted the vines to grow strongly and develop a decent size crop. Early season was marked by fairly erratic temperatures with several heat spikes. These factors made farming quite tough with increased pressure from disease and insects and the vineyard team worked hard to prepare a good-looking crop. Mid-Summer temperatures were moderate although we did experience a short heat wave in January. This was followed by a gale-force South-East wind which hammered the vineyards. This resulted in the grapes ripening quickly and, although we started picking at a normal time, by 10 March we had picked all the grapes for our wines.

This wine spent 21 months maturing in seasoned French oak barriques before being bottled by hand on 10 December 2021. The Keermont Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 was bottle aged in our cellar for 16 months before release to ensure integration and improved drinkability.

Small batches of grapes are specifically selected according to ripeness, harvested by hand, and vinified separately. This process is carried out gently and naturally in open top fermenters using traditional methods only.

Agriculture in the Upper Blaauwklippen Valley can be traced back to 1694. In 2003 the Wraith family moved to the Western Cape from Gauteng and bought two adjacent farms. These two farms are now farmed as one Estate known as Keermont Vineyards. 2005 saw the start of a major vineyard planting programme on lands that had been fallow for a number of years. We planted 21Ha over seven years to add to an existing 8Ha of older vineyards. Our official maiden vintage was 2007 and in 2010 a spring water bottling plant on Fleurfontein was converted into a fully functional winery complete with offices tasting room processing facilities and barrel rooms.