Riverside Chenin Blanc

Enjoy with Salmon and seafood risotto.

Winter temperatures leading up to the 2020 harvest were moderate, with below average rainfall. Fortunately, we had a wet Spring which prompted the vines to grow strong and develop a decent size crop. Early season was marked by erratic temperatures with several heat spikes. These factors made farming quite tough with increased pressure from disease and insects. The vineyard team worked hard to prepare a healthy 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. Although we started picking at a normal time, by 10 March we had picked all the grapes for our wines. The yield from the Riverside Chenin blanc vineyard (2.14 HA) is so low that every bunch is used to make this wine. The vineyard is hand-picked in small sections according to where the grapes are perfectly ripe. The fruit is normally golden yellow in colour and peppered with delicious raisins.

This wine was fermented and then spent a further 11 months maturing on the lees in three seasoned 500L French oak barrels.

The grapes are crushed before being basket-pressed straight to the barrels where the juice will ferment. Fermentation is carried out by yeast which occurs naturally on the grape skins and in the winery.

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.