Chenin Blanc

Any Indian or Eastern dishes with rich, deep flavours of soy and spices will be a superb pairing with this wine. Seafood dishes will also be a winner.

Voor Paardeberg region mainly cultivates dryland vineyards, which means that the better winter rain of 2018/2019 was extremely welcome. 2018 May and June were reasonably cold and wet – sufficient to meet the vineyards’ cold needs. A very warm period towards the end of July caused some vineyards to experience early bud burst. However, inconsistent weather conditions during September with regular cold fronts slowed shoot growth and bud burst. This led to uneven growth patterns in most cases. Strong winds during the flowering period also led to uneven/poor berry set and this eventually led to lower productions. The temperatures were very moderate during December and January. As soon as the shoot growth caught up, the consensus was that the vineyards’ canopies were the best in years, due to sufficient winter rain in Voor Paardeberg area, although the drought from the past three years still leant to smaller bunches. The first heat wave only occurred at the beginning of February. We harvested our Chenin towards the end of February

These 3 portions were all separately fermented and then after all 3 were completely fermented, these portions were blended and put into neutral barrels for 8 months for maturation.

After the grapes were cooled down, we proceeded to press a third of the production as whole bunch clusters. The rest of the production we destemmed and crushed into bins, and put back into the cool room for some additional skin cold soaking. After 7 days’ worth of cold soaking at 10 degrees Celsius, we pressed half of the volume that was originally crushed. This accounted to another third. Then lastly we fermented the last third of the production - still in bins – on the skins until dry. We had daily punch downs and concentrated extraction of the flavour in the skins. The wine was left on the skins for an additional 5 days after a complete fermentation.

Pilgrim Wines is a unique wine company, dedicated to inspire, teach and surprise. We are a small family-owned business with a passion for wine making. Well-known Winemaker Henry Kotzé (former Morgenster and now at the iconic Mulderbosch) carefully crafts the wines for owner and Viticulturist wife Riëtte Kotzé’s Pilgrim Wines brand. We do not have our own vineyards, at the moment we source our grapes from small pockets of vineyards that we have come across in our everyday paths. These distinct parcels of land, happen to be in our home-grown Stellenbosch area and the amazing Voor Paardeberg regions. We partner with like minded ethical growers and believe in leaving nothing but footprints for the next generation. We focus on innovative methods with tried and tested cultivars, as well as experimental styles with unorthodox, unfamiliar cultivars. We like to discover the new and untried pathways in the journey of grape to bottle.