The Leeu Passant

Terrific with steaks or chops—like lamb chops with frizzled herbs.

This incredible Dry Red wine, the flagship in our Leeu Passant range, is a heritage blend from some of South Africa’s oldest registered vineyards. Both the Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc hail from dry-farmed vines grown on the mid-slopes of the iron and sandstone soils of the Helderberg Mountain in Stellenbosch, whilst the Cinsault is from South Africa’s oldest registered red wine vineyard, made up of dry-farmed bush vines, planted on deep sandy alluvial soils in Wellington in 1900. The various grape varieties were hand-harvested between 3 February and 23 March 2020 with a yield of two to six tons per hectare, which translated to the hectolitres per hectare ranging from 12 to 38.

This wine was aged for eleven months in 500L French oak barrels, of which a third was new and was then blended into seasoned 2000L Foudres for a further ten months.

The Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc were destemmed into tanks while the Cinsault was left with 100% of its stems intact and gently crushed. The caps were maintained throughout indigenous yeast fermentation, with a combination of gentle punch downs and pump overs, depending on the requisite by each wine during its fermentation cycle. After an extended maceration period of five weeks, the wines were drained and pressed to barrel. Each wine was racked during the winter, meticulously blended and then transferred to large wooden Foudre in February of 2021.

The Leeu Passant winery, based in Franschhoek, was established in 2013 with the purpose of harnessing the most exciting vineyards of the Cape in order to create multi-regional wines from vineyards aimed at expressing the Cape as a whole (not only from Franschhoek). The Name “Leeu Passant” is derived from Heraldry, referring to a ‘passing Lion’ and this is the symbol on the top of the capsule. Chris and Andrea Mullineux search far and wide for the best parcels of grapes for these wines, and make them at the Leeu Passant base, on Leeu Estates.