Granite Syrah

The grapes benefitted from the protection of a cool early morning picking and were put into 500L French oak open top fermenters whole-bunched. Once crushed by foot, the indigenous fermentation process started, and very gentle extraction was achieved by doing punch-downs by hand. To accentuate the refined tannin structure of its GRANITE terroir origin, the wine was given skin contact for three weeks before being gravitationally drained and then pressed back into the same vessels for malolactic fermentation and further maturation.

The fruit for our 2021 GRANITE Syrah hails from bush vines planted in the decomposed Granitic soils of the Paardeberg and this wine has become our Single Terroir red most synonymous with gorgeous perfumed aromatics, freshness and length. These characteristics are mainly driven by each vine having to work intensely hard to get to the water source seated deep within the GRANITE structure. The GRANITE Syrah was hand-harvested on 15 February 2021 with yields of five tons/ha, which translated to 28HL/ha.

This wine was matured for 12 months in French oak 500L barrels of which 50% were new, followed by 10 months in 2000L Foudre. Once bottled, the wine was aged for another eight months before it was released.