Albariño

Perfect with seafood & shellfish, pasta and salads.

An unprecedented vintage with remarkably long ripening. The growing season started off with rapid and even budding due to some warm spikes in the middle of September. Abundant rain fueled the growth of the vines under mild temperatures, where we managed to avoid any mildew issues with a massive deluge of rain in the middle of Pinot noir and Chardonnay flowering in late October. The rest of the growing season was charac terised by mild temperatures and intermittent rains, with another substantial rain event during veraison. The harvest months of February and March saw us picking in between weekly rains. Botrytis rot was rampant in much of the valley though our crop losses were fortunately negligeable. The bulk of our Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were picked in late February and in to March. The Pinot Noir averaged 105 days of ripening from flowering to harvest, the first time we have exceeded the 100 day mark, that saw beautifully evolved and complex flavours with concentration and fine, ripe tannins. The white wines of 2020 also express remarkable definition and depth due to the length of ripening. In contrast with the norm, we had to wait patiently for ripeness instead of be ing chased by it. The Albariño vineyards were harvested between 21- 28 February.

Matured for 8 months in concrete eggs (42%), stainless steel (45%) and old wooden foudre (13%). No fining, coarse filtration and sulphur adjustment before bottling.

The grapes are handpicked and packed in to small, shallow crates to limit crushing of the bunches. The day’s harvest is cooled down overnight to 8ºC in the winery’s refrigerated cold room. The bunches are hand-sorted on a conveyor table, destemmed and crushed, falling directly into stainless steel tanks where, after a few hours of skin contact, the juice is allowed to drain into lower tanks for settling . The juice is settled overnight (no enzymes used) and racked to large concrete egg s, stainless steel, with a smaller component in old foudre, for spontaneous fermentation. No sulphur was added before fermentation.

Newton Johnson Vineyards is owned and managed by the Newton Johnson family. The farm is based in the upper Hemel en Aarde Valley near the seaside town of Hermanus an hour and a half’s drive out of Cape Town. This is a popular tourist destination famous for some of the most spectacular land-based whale watching in the world lush indigenous fynbos a floral kingdom home to 1500 species and exclusive to the Cape mountain walks and bike trails. Led by Dave a Cape Wine Master with a thesis on Pinot Noir and his wife Felicity (nee Newton) the Newton Johnson family moved to the Upper Hemel en Aarde Valley in 1995 built a cellar and started planting vines shortly thereafter. This enthusiasm for wine and Pinot noir in particular was passed on to and eagerly adopted by his sons Bevan and Gordon. They in turn have taken this family cellar and vineyards to new heights in exploring the nuances of this grape and their vineyards.