Sam

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The grapes were bunch sorted, destemmed, berry sorted and then partially crushed to small wooden upright fermenters. There is an initial cold maceration until the fermentation begins naturally. Post fermentation maceration is dependent on the ripeness of the fruit at picking and tannin development in the wine. The wine is then drained off and pressed in a vertical basket press. Malolactic fermentation takes place in barrel after which the wine is racked and returned to barrel for further maturation.

The 2020 vintage in Stellenbosch is regarded as an excellent vintage when it comes to quality and quantity. After a better than average rainfall over the preceding winter and good cold units, we had an early budbreak in the spring of 2019. With a warmer and drier spring than usual we had even budburst across most varieties. We had good bunch formation but with some adverse weather conditions during flowering we had a natural crop thinning. Although the average yields were higher than 2019 and pretty good in total. With enough rain during the growing season, we had minimal stress in the vineyards. Most of the growing season and into the ripening season we had moderate and cool conditions again minimising stress. Later in the ripening season, especially for Bordeaux red cultivars, we had dry and warm weather which compounded with the early start to the harvest resulted in one of our earliest and fastest harvests on record. Luckily all the grapes were in the cellar before the COVID lockdown of the 26th March. All of the above resulted in good ripening and concentration in the grapes. The vineyards are specially selected according to their age and site from various parts of Stellenbosch, mostly unirrigated and all low yielding (4 to 8 t/ha). This gives a pure expression of its environment in the wine. The grapes are ripened to peak maturity (between 23- and 25-degrees brix) before being hand harvested & delivered to the cellar and placed into a cold store overnight at 4 degrees Celsius.

Maturation takes place in small 225-liter French barriques of which 51% is new and the balance 2nd and 3rd fill barrels. Total maturation is for 22 months with regular racking’s. The wine received no fining or filtration before bottling.