Village Estate Riesling

In addition to vineyard sorting, a second stage of bunch and berry sorting occurs at the cellar to eliminate all traces of rot. After the grapes are pressed, and the juice settled, the juice is fermented using selected yeast cultures. Grapes from different block on the estate is fermented separately and 15% of the wine is fermented in large 2500L oval oak vats. Fermentation is stopped on a portion of the wine, which is blended back later, to give the wine its natural sweetness. The rest of the wine is fermented dry and left on the fine lees which helps add complexity to the wine. The wine is blended and stabilized in preparation for bottling.

After a cold winter with good rainfall, we experienced great growing conditions leading to the 2022 harvest. We have quite a big diurnal difference due to our altitude, thus the evenings were cool and days moderate during harvest. The Riesling grapes was harvested from the 8th till the 10th of March till the 26th of March, with the grapes being between 20.2-21.5 ° Brix. Most of the grapes for this vintage came from the 13-year and 35-year-old Riesling blocks with a small percentage from the other blocks. The soil in the older block varies from a ‘ferricrete’ top layer (surficial sand and gravel masses) on decomposed Bokkeveld Shale and/or light clay. The younger blocks are also on duplex soils but dominated by shale. The average gradient is 1:7 and height above sea level is 300 meters.